CHAPTER V

THE HAND FROM OUT THE DARK

FOR the barest fraction of a minute Carson stared down uncomprehendingly at Marcia’s brother. At last he managed to speak.

“Lost — lost — my — that ten thousand dollar certificate? And — and ten thousand dollars of the bank’s money? In God’s name, man, are you trying to spring some sort of a weird joke on me? If you are, Cary, it’s a poor sort of a one to spring. What the — ”

But Cary Desmond shook his head dismally. “No, it’s no joke, Cliff. It’s no joke. I only wish to God it was.” He gave vent to a long-drawn-out sigh, almost a groan. “No, I’m done for, Cliff. Quite regardless of what you yourself may do to me, I’m due to go over the road. Oh, what a fool I’ve been — what a fool. But I never meant to use your stock certificate. Remember that. That — that was a crazy accident, a horrible piece of misfortune. But I have been a fool. And I’ve come to tell you, so that you — ”

“Just a minute,” commanded Carson sternly. And even as he endeavored to muster in his tones sufficient calmness to counteract Cary’s complete perturbation, he felt suddenly cold, as for the first time the realization began to seep into him that he had heard not a joke, but something that was most decidedly serious; something that affected two people in that room, and badly. But whatever it was, it must be straightened out somehow. He pulled his own scattered wits together with an effort. The unnerved Cary now sat slumped in his chair. Carson went to the door of the office and, opening it, peered out. The corridor of the building was empty. Whereupon he snapped the button in the door, locking it fast against any possible intruders. Then he came back. He dropped heavily into his swivel chair. “Now out with it, Cary. What in heaven’s name have you done? How have you gotten away with this money? Where is it? What have you done with it? And what do you mean by an accident to that Texas Helium Gas certificate you were taking care of for me?”

Cary Desmond’s eyes roved dejectedly around the tiny office with its brand new spick-and-span furniture. Then he stared straight into the eyes of his foster-brother — the fiancé of his sister. “Oh, Cliff, it was a horrible accident, I tell you — and because of that accident is why I’m sunk — at the bank.” He paused, gropingly. “You — you see, Cliff, it all began some weeks ago. I’d never in my life given any thought to money — it had never meant anything to me — that is up to that time — when it began to look as though that old money-hungry Matthias Smock was going to clean up strong on Father’s and his old Rocky Ridge tract because of the L-Road extension, and freeze Sis and me out of Father’s share which you know morally belongs to us. It was then I got to thinking for the first time what a wonderful thing it was to — to have money. I sort of — sort of got obsessed with the idea. And — and I thought of the stock market — a quick way. A — ”

“A quick way to hell for bank tellers,” said Carson grimly. “Gad, but I wish you hadn’t been quite so young in the famous crash two years back, and had had a little nipping like the rest of the world got. You’d have had your lesson then for all ti — ” He made a helpless gesture. “But go on — the facts — all of ‘em.”

“Well, I borrowed a hundred bucks on my salary. I started off by — by playing a little on the silver market. Silver, you know, was — ”

“So silver got you?” groaned Carson. “Yes, I know all about silver. Ever since, apparently, there have been seven or eight new commercial uses for silver discovered, including a process for plating chinaware with it — yes, you know this crazy new fad that’s sweeping the world — complete sets of silver-plated chinaware — even silver-plated flowers and plants, too — every source has been active on the stock market. I might tell you that the seven or eight points don’t amount to a row of beans in the face of the total amount of silver in the world — they’re just seven or eight more talking points to make people speculate.”

“Then — then why was it zooming up?” asked Cary desperately.

“Why? I’ll tell you why. Because for reasons the ordinary man in the street can’t grasp. For one thing, the world silver slump of 1928, ’29 and ’30 was caused solely by the demonetization by Great Britain of silver in India, which was going on at an average rate of twenty-nine million ounces per year. That was about eighteen percent of the total world production, averaging one hundred and twenty-eight million ounces. When Gopal Mahatma Younghi induced Premier Nethercleft of Great Britain to spread the demonetization over a fifty-year scale, in exchange for certain allegiances on the part of India to England, and Senator Burbo of Arizona got through the United States Congress in the same month a bill to reduce the four hundred million dollars worth of silver dollars in the Treasury to eighty percent of that amount as security for the same amount of Treasury notes, loaning the surplus twenty percent to China on a forty-year loan, the whole world silver slump stopped and silver came back into its own. But what does the man in the street know about two such widely diverse international finance moves as that? He can’t interpret them together any more than he can understand how the great world financial depression of 1930 was caused in actuality by the United States and France, out of forty-four countries, holding together fifty-five percent of the world’s gold supplies, or five billion dollars. As for silver, the man in the street sees silver come back into its own — and attributes it to fool processes for plating chinaware with it, and other equally fantastic causes. And he — ” Carson stopped. “But go ahead. After all, I want to know what this has got to do with me. You played with silver on some sort of margin. And then?”

“And I was lucky, and cleaned up,” put in Cary hastily. “I made nearly three hundred dollars, Cliff, and I put my winnings into a single share of Commonwealth Edison, the best stock on earth. And I was done with the market. For good, I thought. I came so near losing my money, that — that I was cured. But then — then I got interested in Black Dragon Copper. Its shares have been jumping up and down on the market like wildfire. I thought I could clean up a little. I borrowed two hundred bucks this time on my salary — and — well, I took a flock of copper shares — a huge flock on margin. I — ” He stopped, swallowing.

“And so — so it was copper?” put in the older man. “Copper, that’s been between the two most tremendous market forces it’s ever known. On the one hand, the invention of the Vesey process for salvaging old copper which seems to indicate that as high as seven hundred thousand tons can be regained every year at eighteen cents per pound for secondary metal — beating the market down; and the significant reports that the great Mother Machree lode in Montana, the greatest depositary in the world, is flickering out — forcing the market upward. And so you — but go on. I’m orating here when my own interests are somehow involved. For God’s sake go on. My certificate — that woman’s certificate — where does that come in?”

“Yes, that’s — that it,” said Cary eagerly. “The certificate, Cliff. You see, Cliff, I put it in a big sealed envelope in my private vault in the tellers’ section of the main vaults — the bank gives us each one, as you know. But I had another envelope there — one containing that share of Commonwealth Edison that I put my last winnings into. When Licky — that’s the bucket-shop man I’ve been dealing with — Licky and Greenburg on La Salle Street — called me up at the bank last Friday morning and told me I’d have to put up more margin, I decided to throw in my three hundred dollars winnings. I could talk freely to him — I had closed my cage temporarily — and had called him back in one of the phone booths for customers which has a straight ‘out’ wire — doesn’t run through the bank switchboard — and so I told him I would rush over to him a stock certificate that I owned: I asked him to sell it for me right on the morning market, credit it to my account, and apply it to my margin till he heard from me in person.

“Well, when I left the booth, I went to my vault, got my envelope out — and sent it over to Licky by a messenger. Then I went back into my cage. I called up a few minutes later to make sure, and found from Licky and Greenburg’s switchboard girl that my messenger had gotten there O.K. And I worked the rest of the day, Cliff, knowing that a couple of points down on Black Dragon would wipe out my three hundred dollars, and a half-dozen points or so up would make me over a thousand. Well, when the bank closed in the afternoon, I managed to get hold of an early evening paper. And Black Dragon, Cliff, had fallen so far that I was cleaned out. It had fallen so far and so fast that Licky evidently hadn’t even had time to call on me for more margins. It — it just tumbled, Cliff, right downstairs, a whole series of steps at a time.

“I felt pretty peeved, but I was philosophical about it to myself. I’d made a handful of change on silver, and dropped it on copper. And so I decided to forget it. And next day, Saturday, I’d just about gotten it out of my mind, when — when Licky called me up just about noontime, before the close of the market and the close of the bank. Black Dragon had been falling all Saturday morning too — never had there been known to be such a tumble in its shares. And Licky knocked me for a row of ashcans, Cliff, by telling me he’d have to have more margin if we were to stay with it Monday morning. I was dumbfounded, Cliff. I was stupefied. For the life of me I couldn’t see how my little three hundred dollar share of Commonwealth Edison stock had carried me clear down to that point. I should have been cleaned out before eleven o’clock the day before. And then, suddenly, Cliff, my blood ran cold. I hung up. I went to my teller’s vault. I rummaged through some miscellaneous papers there, and came on my envelope — an envelope, Cliff. I tore it open. And good God, there was my Commonwealth Edison share. And it was your client’s Texas Helium certificate I had sent over — endorsed in blank, too, like all stock. And I had stayed with the bear movement on Black Dragon Copper to the tune of ten thousand dollars.

“I — I got Licky on the phone again. I could hardly talk, Cliff. Asked him if he’d had any trouble in marketing that certificate. He said none. Sold it on the curb. To some mysterious unknown buyer, his own trader reported, some fellow with a short yellow beard who nobody around there had ever seen or heard of, a fellow who looked like a German army officer, for he wore a monocle and spoke with a decided German accent. The fellow, Licky said, was buying in certain utilities only, including Tex Helium. And either he was exceptionally well-heeled, or else intended to avoid any clues to his identity through the use of checks, for he paid cash in five hundred dollar bills. But of course, Cliff, the stock certificate could have been sold to anybody for that matter. It was gilt edge. And endorsed in blank by some Polish person that it had originally been issued to. You remember?” Carson nodded wearily. Cary went on, hurriedly, like a man who has with great difficulty accomplished a formidable and trying explanation. “I — I talked to Licky about Black Dragon Copper. He said that the downward movement was nothing but a big copper warfare, that Black Dragon must eventually go back — that it would be the leading stock that it always had been. He looked for the big skyrocketing any minute now. He said that I had simply gotten squeezed between two copper magnates who were struggling for control. And so telling him I’d get him some more margin over promptly Monday morning, I hung up and went back to my cage for the Saturday noon bank balancing. God, Cliff, I tell you I was stunned.”

Cary paused now. It was plain that his explanation had divested him of a tremendous amount of nervous energy. Carson, even though he was seeing this contretemps in his own affairs, developed step by step, uttered no word now that might serve to stop the flow of the story. And Cary managed to pick up the thread again.

“All Saturday afternoon,” he said, “ — and Sunday — I went through hell. I knew I had gotten you into a fine mess — because you’d told me how that certificate had only been left with you through a misunderstanding as to the duties of your office. I went to the newspaper offices Sunday and studied, in the back files, the stock-market reports on Black Dragon all day. Quotations that ran back for an entire year. And when Sunday night came, I was literally armed with figures that proved Black Dragon positively couldn’t drop further — that if I would stay with it only a few hours more — say the early hours of Monday — it’d turn for the upward swing and go skyrocketing and I’d literally clean up. And I commenced to think, Cliff, how wonderful it would be to clean up a little fortune through a bit of gameness and nerve; of course I know I’ve been a rotter — ” Cary made a helpless gesture with his hands, “ — leaving Sis to support Granddad and to run that house and work nights in the bargain. But as I say, I was sore — sore all over that Smock should clean up so strong on Father’s share of the Rocky Ridge tract — and — and I thought how wonderful it would be to lay a fat wad on Sis’s lap and say — ’Never mind, Sis, we don’t need or care what Smock cleans up on Daddy’s property. We’ — ”

“And so,” put in Carson bitterly, “you decided to stay with Black Dragon for a few hundred dollars more Monday morning — a thousand, perhaps, of the bank’s money — and then sit back and watch it tick off a fortune for you while it went to the top of the thermometer and burst the glass in the bargain?”

Cary sighed a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

“That’s — that’s about it, Cliff. Oh, what’s the use of telling the rest of the story, except to let you know what happened to Licky and Greenburg.” He paused, swallowing hard. “Well, Monday morning I got to the bank early, and shot over to Licky my single Commonwealth Edison share and seven hundred dollars of the bank’s money. I called for telephonic reports on every two-point movement. And the first reports showed that Black Dragon had edged on down. But so slowly now, Cliff. Truly, it seemed as though it couldn’t work down another point by the combined effort of all the bears in America, particularly when you consider the long, long distance it had already traveled. I shot over fifteen hundred dollars more. I figured the crisis had passed, and I had won. But it drifted down. I shot over two thousand dollars, my brain bursting. Then another two thousand dollars. Then twenty-eight hundred dollars — no, twenty-six hundred dollars, to be exact. And then, to cap the climax, what happens but that Licky and Greenburg went under — for on my next frantic call, shortly after noontime, I found that a receiver was in the place, advising all clients that the firm was closed up and off the market, and — and I couldn’t even follow up the program I’d already started. According to the afternoon papers, Cliff, Licky and his partner have been playing a little too strong on the radio market — and International Radio Inc. closed ‘em out pronto when they couldn’t deliver a lot of stock they were supposed to have sold. But to go back to my story. While I was casting about wondering how I could dig up another broker somehow, and keep on with the agony that I’d stayed with all this time, Black Dragon suddenly developed another tumble and this time it went so fast that I didn’t have a chance. Why, Cliff, that first tumble was nothing compared to the one that took place this afternoon. If Licky and Greenburg hadn’t gone under, or if I’d had another broker, which I didn’t, and I’d stayed with that second tumble and kept on feeding the calls for margin I’d have been thirty or forty thousand dollars out. The courts would have given me twenty years in the pen. As it is — ” His face grew dark and troubled. “As it is — God — it’ll mean ten years. Oh Cliff, what shall I do? And what have I done to you?”

Carson rose from his chair. His own head was buzzing now. He paced up and down for several minutes. At last he stopped in front of Cary and spoke. He was surprised at the calmness he was able to muster in this situation.

“You have ruined me, Cary,” he said quietly. He stood looking down at Marcia’s brother. Then he laughed harshly, mirthlessly. “You know, Cary, I always had a hunch that this wonderful job was too good to be true. Indeed, there wasn’t a thing on earth that could have ousted me from it but malfeasance in office. For I had seniority to add to my highest rating. I was to get six thousand dollars salary next year, Cary, and a rising scale thereafter. All this was to mean happiness and luxury to your little sister. But now, my boy, I’ve succeeded in losing ten thousand dollars in assets entrusted to me. In the charter and code of operation drawn up for this office, I am personally responsible to the United States Government for all mining stocks left here for investigation by clients; and the Government, in the official receipt which I am empowered to give out and which I gave out to this Sicilian woman, makes itself responsible to these clients. Pending the full installation of these vaults, the one body in America who is superior to me — the Congressional Committee for Mining Stock Investigation — personally ordered me to hire a safety box in the name of this department and keep all stocks in it that might be valuable. Which I didn’t do! I got careless — and let you put the one valuable share that did come in, in your teller’s vault.” Carson shook his head, and sighed, “No, Cary, they won’t send me to prison. Your testimony at a hearing will absolve me from actual theft. That is, maybe — and maybe not, at that. I don’t know. They may figure it’s a put-up job with a convict — yes, Cary, as you say, you’ll be a convict by that time and in stripes — a put-up job to mulct the Government out of ten thousand dollars for the Desmond-Carson family. Whatever they think, I’ll be out. They won’t keep me here for a moment. A hearing on the facts — and I’m done for. And as for this Sicilian woman, she’ll have to bring suit against the Committee of Mining Investigation on my official receipt. She’ll get judgment after long expensive legal monkey-business for her. And she’ll get her money back some day.” He shook his head. “Gad, Cary, but you sure did make a mess of things. I’ll say that Matthias Smock didn’t do you any good if he was the cause for your chasing the will-of-the-wisp of stock-market riches just because he was mulcting you and Marcia out of what ought to be yours.”

“It was his fault,” proclaimed Cary vehemently. “Outside of that terrible mistake I made on that Tex Helium Gas certificate which, after all, Cliff, is partly your fault for leaving it with me, I brooded about Smock a lot. I tell you I wanted to clean up some money — to put a fat wad on Sister’s lap, and — ”

“And,” put in Carson wearily, “the fat wad wound up on somebody else’s lap instead. A wad including my appointment here — or that Sicilian woman’s certificate.” He shook his head slowly. “Great Scott, Cary, if only you could work as I have worked in this department of the Government, you would have known that any kind of a mine whose shares were zigzagging up and down sufficiently to allow playing it on a margin is likely incorporated for stock-juggling purposes. You would know that with the hundreds of mines which are almost fraudulent, even a slight investment in their stock is fraught with danger. I could take you into that next room and show you in five minutes by the geological map and the statistics concerning the copper output of Black Dragon that with its location its shares are only a wild speculation even when they are bought outright.” He shook his head. “No, Cary, the game of the elemental minerals is not for the unadvised or the unsophisticated.” He stared curiously down at his foster-brother. He marveled at his own composure in the face of the fact that his own little dream was over, but he did not perceive that this composure was engendered only by the dread thing that now hung over the head of Marcia’s brother. “Where did you start this crazy stuff?” he asked suddenly. “Where did you get that first hundred dollars you borrowed? And that later two hundred?”

“From a loan shark.”

“Who was he?”

“Oh — just a shark.”

“Matthias Smock, in other words. You trotted straight to Matthias Smock’s office to make your loan — to the man who is doing you and your sister a rank injustice. Confess, didn’t you? You went to the man who is going to give you and your sister a paltry thousand dollars apiece when you should have half the selling price of that Outer-Ravenswood tract.”

Cary reddened. “Well — yes — I did make both loans in his offices. But what does it matter who I made ‘em from? The loan-sharks all charge three and one-half percent per month. And he — he was willing to advance the largest sum of any of ‘em. What difference does it make?”

“None, I guess, Cary. None. As for myself, we’ll just forget me. I’m ruined. But there’s no use of my croaking in the face of what’s facing you — you’ll have to go to prison. All I have to do is to see myself dropped, and I can get a mining engineer’s job and — ” he laughed dismally “ — at any rate, I won’t have to work the rest of the year for the balance of a dollar salary. Oh, I’ll get by. Except, Cary, that this was the opportunity of the age. In time to come I’d have been senior officer over all the other agents that are to be appointed in other parts of the country — everything. But now another man will have it — some man who will have brains enough to follow simple instructions and put the assets of the bureau into a safety box. No, Cary, in the face of what faces you, we’ll just forget me.”

With which statement he rose from his chair and walked troubledly up and down the room. What a devilish complication was this thing that Cary Desmond had drawn down upon his own head as well as the heads of two others who were close to him. His accounts shy at the bank by a young fortune. Carson’s — or rather Mrs. Galioto’s — certificate, a thing as negotiable as money itself, vanished into the great bottomless and Cimmerian pool of stock trading, a pool that reached from here to Shanghai and back again, a dozen legitimate buyers now interposed between the recent conveyance of doubtful legality and its present unknown location, a location which would likely remain unknown till the next annual stock dividend date, nearly six months, as he recalled it, from now. And the only persons against whom he had any chance whatever under the law to bring a legal action: his own foster-brother, penniless, indicted for embezzlement; and Licky and Greenburg, bankrupt bucketeers! What a mess!

As for Mr. Cary himself, he had done what thousands of others had done in the past and been openly punished for in the courts of law; and if he too had to pay the price he would not be paying, perhaps, any more than was coming to him considering the warnings given out almost daily by the press. And as for himself, Carson, in the last eight minutes he had tumbled more swiftly even than had Black Dragon copper — from the knowledge that he sat snug and tight in the scheme of things financial — to the realization that he was out on the streets seeking a job as mining engineer, for ten thousand dollars with which to recompense Mrs. Angelo Galioto for the loss of her stock certificate was just exactly about ninety-five hundred dollars more than he had in the world or could raise by any methods whatsoever. Yet all this, strangely, caused him little concern, and he knew only too well the reason why.

Marcia!

She was the reason. Poor little Marcia — disgraced when a little girl by having other little girls point to her scornfully and ask her, “Your daddy’s in jail, ain’t he?” — her young life spoiled until those later days when the Crooked Crayshaw revelations were to prove that that daddy had been but one more martyr to crooked politics. And now, at this stage, to become once more related to a prison inmate — the sister of a convicted embezzler!

What a shame, what a beastly shame, Carson told himself over and over again, as he walked up and down, up and down, Cary watching him now in absolute silence. And that Cary’s ill-fated impulse to get rich — or at least comfortable — should have found its inception in his resentment at Matthias Smock’s taking unto himself that which belonged rightfully to both families was a bit of bitter irony, to say the least. Truly, it demonstrated in a way far too harsh the manner in which the facts and motives of life were hopelessly tangled together. Smock had pulled down a pretty kettle of fish when he openly proclaimed his intentions of lawfully seizing the old Rocky Ridge tract, once worth two thousand dollars, today worth one hundred thousand dollars, by having Henry Desmond declared dead. But it was no excuse for Cary to ruin his own life, and that of his sister and grandfather as well, not to mention the mud that he was splashing on his sister’s fiancé.

At last Carson stopped in his pacing up and down and turned to Cary.

“Exactly how much were you in the red when you stopped feeding the copper market? When you learned, that is, that Licky and Greenburg had blown up? I mean on the bank’s money — never mind counting that Sicilian woman’s Helium Gas certificate which has a par value of just a few dollars under ten thousand dollars?”

“Ninety-six hundred dollars exactly,” said Cary wearily. “Of the bank’s money,” he added.

“Hm. You say they’ve given you a vacation?”

“Yes. Starting tonight. I’m supposed to have balanced up my books when I left, an hour ago.”

“Do you think they suspect the truth?”

A doleful nod. “Yes. I took a desperate chance and put one call through to Licky and Greenburg through the bank’s switchboard. The girl operator at the bank doesn’t like me. I’m certain she listened in. The conversation indicated, at the very least, that I was interested in the stock market. I’m certain she reported it to the president.”

“You say tomorrow is the bank examiner’s day?”

“Yes. I had a hot tip from an employe who heard the president phoning for one. I know full well whose books he will start on.”

“Hm.” Carson bit his lips perturbedly. “Cary, you’ve gone and done us all up for fair. All of us, I say. For any legal action on my part, you know, to regain that Helium certificate has to be against you, or at the best Licky and Greenburg, or the two of you jointly, and even if Licky and Greenburg were still in the running, such action would drag on in the courts for two or three years. In the end, if a judgment were gotten against anyone, it would be against you — owning nothing — or against a few desks and potted rubber plants belonging to Licky and Greenburg. I know that outfit. Such an action would have dragged on so long, as a matter of fact, that Mrs. Galioto would long since have regained her loss against the Government.” He shook his head. “Lucky for you, maybe, that Licky and Greenburg are under, for if I ultimately got a judgment against them, they’d only turn around — you’d be in Joliet Pen by that time, of course — and clap an additional sentence onto your head — for another five or ten years. And through it all, nobody would actually get anything.” He shook his head decisively. “No, there’s no way out for me — and you’re done tomorrow. All I can do — and I shall do that, of course, is to stall off these Sicilians for a few weeks, while your goose is being cooked, and keep the family scandals down to one trial or one Congressional Hearing at one time. I’m sure sorry for Marcia. I — ”

The sharp ringing of the phone bell on his desk interrupted Carson’s words. He stepped to the instrument and raised the receiver. He spoke.

“Federal Bureau of Mining Stock Investigation. Yes. Mr. Carson speaking. Oh — Tony — Tony Galioto? Yes, Tony?”

The words of a young Sicilian boy of twelve or thirteen came into the receiver.

“Meester Carsone, I have wrote mom in Sicilione w’at you tella me, an’ mom she hava sen’ back dat receipt from Millawaukee, and she want dat I come in and get dat stifficate.”

“Yes, but Tony, these offices are closed for the day. What’s more, the stock certificate is put away in safe keeping. I — well I couldn’t get it for you tonight.” He winced as he spoke. “In fact, Tony, I want to talk to your mother personally — with you present, of course, to interpret — about that certificate.”

“Oh.” The boy was frankly puzzled.

“When does your mother return from Milwaukee? In a few weeks? A week? When?”

“Naw, Meester Carsone. She coma back Chicago Toorsday morning.”

“Then have her come in personally and you be sure to come with her. I’ll — I’ll — well, I’ll explain a number of things.”

“She say, Meester Carsone, I getta Joe Allenuzza, the lawyer, rightaway, if you no giva me back stifficate.”

“Don’t be foolish, my boy. Have your mother come in Thursday when she gets back — and we’ll finish up this matter. Come with her yourself. Or have her bring this Allenuzza, if she wants to. Anybody, in fact, who can understand English.”

“I write her, Meester Carsone.”

“Do that.” And Carson hung up. He turned from the phone. He made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Thursday, then, Cary, I have to explain to Mrs. Galioto that I haven’t got her certificate, that I can’t pay her for it, and that, in fact, the only way she can get its value back is to bring a suit against the Committee of Mining Investigation. She’ll probably have her lawyer with her. He’ll act quick. By Saturday there’ll be an ouster order against me from Washington — and a new man in here.” He sighed. He looked about the little office. It was beginning to appear to him now like an enchanting palace.

He resumed speaking to Cary exactly where he had left off when the phone bell had rung.

“Well, Cary, by the end of the week we’ll both be in warm water. I’ll come out without any prison sentences though. And Marcia and I will marry just the same. But it sure burns me up that you should bring disgrace on that little girl who has worked her fingers to the bone because you wouldn’t live at home and help carry the burden of that house out there. That’s the damnableness of it. But what’s the use of my lecturing? You’ll get yours from the judge and jury when the truth of this comes out at the bank.”

“I’ll say I will,” murmured Cary. He sighed a long dolorous sigh. It was plain that he had given up the ship and was only waiting for it to go down with him.

Carson resumed his pacing up and down. “If only we knew that your father were alive. If only we could have some sign — some clue — as to where to search him out. We are face to face with one other critical situation, as I explained fully to your sister today. If you and Marcia accept Smock’s two thousand dollars tomorrow morning in exchange for your father’s quitclaim, you have, to be sure, two thousand dollars with which to make partial restitution to the bank. For Marcia would demand this method of using the money, I am certain. That might moderate your punishment to a slight extent. But by the quitclaim Smock can turn over the entire Outer Ravenswood tract immediately and pocket a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars from Whitlock, Spayne, Critchley and Evans. I speak of all this for the reason that if your father were here and in a position to make good your defalcation at any time prior to your trial for embezzlement, he would do so without any hesitation.” Carson made an expressive gesture of his hands. “But if he is dead, Heaven knows we can’t afford to pass up that two thousand dollars now, of all times.”

He resumed his pacing up and down, up and down. The problem had come upon him so suddenly that he had not had time to realize the hopelessness of the situation. Suddenly he stopped. He went to the desk where he had thrown down a paper when he had come in, the newspaper which he had been reading on the way out to the St. Giles Lane house. He ran his eye across the captions of the front page, and then, paper in hand, dropped into his swivel chair once more. He fastened his gaze on the other.

“Cary, you say you’re sent on a vacation tonight — that the bank examiner comes tomorrow. If the money could be raised tonight — would there be any way by which you could straighten out your accounts before he starts in?”

“Indeed there would,” replied the younger man. “I could stop off at the bank in the morning with my fishing tackle and valises as though I were going on a trip, and substitute the money for a packet which contains blank paper. But how — how am I going to do it?”

“Yes — how?” repeated Carson helplessly. His brow was creased into fine lines. “Cary, what have you done with your old invention — the Cary Desmond Burglar-Proof Safe? Have you ever tried to patent it?”

Cary shook his head. “No. The safe is still down in the basement of the St. Giles Lane house, gathering dust. Frankly, Cliff, since working it out, I’ve been in doubt that any Safe Company in America would be interested in it as a commercial proposition. And then, too, the patenting expenses — I haven’t felt able to spare the money for the fees, particularly after what it cost me that time to rent that little foundry and cast the thing up secretly according to my own specifications. But — but what’s that got to do with my present situation?”

“It’s got something to do with it — and yet — ” Carson wrinkled up his forehead once more. “And yet — I don’t see exactly where it has a solution for our case, considering the few hours left us.” He paused. “Here, read this afternoon edition of the News. The Reggie and Dolly van Twillingham divorce case, as you undoubtedly know, has resulted in some mighty bitter and sensational charges being bandied back and forth. They’ve been published far and wide, for they make good newspaper copy. And why wouldn’t they, considering that Reggie van Twillingham is worth fifty million at a conservative estimate? In case you’ve been too busy reading the ticker tape on Black Dragon Copper, I’ll merely rehearse one or two of the citations. Reggie charges Dolly with receiving typewritten pseudo-business letters from the co-respondent in the case, some melancholy Italian baritone, in which certain messages were conveyed in code, such as for instance when the letters constituting her name, like ‘Dear Mrs. van Twillingham,’ were spaced out, or the letters constituting the signature, like ‘Smith and Brown, Furriers,’ were similarly treated. So much for that. She charges back that Reggie rigged up a man-trap — a sawed-off shotgun pointing to his library safe in his Astor Street home and dischargeable by the breaking of a thread, for the sole and only purpose of despatching her. That last charge is a most serious one. It has resulted in Reggie van Twillingham’s issuing an important bulletin in today’s papers. He offers the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars cash for an idea — an unpatented one — to be solely his, the idea being a method of protecting or constructing a safe that no burglar can crack without travelling post-haste across the river Styx. I daresay he figures that the publicity attendant on his paying out such a sum is worth nearly twenty-five thousand dollars to him towards removing the stigma caused by Dolly’s charge, but there is also this to be considered: The van Twillingham mansion has been twice burglarized in the past five years, its safe cracked each time, and a goodly number of family jewels made away with. Consequently, regardless of the valuable publicity, I think Reggie van Twillingham is sincere in trying to evolve a safe that will put the next cracksman down and out.”

Cary stared unbelievingly. “Oh, Cliff — maybe — maybe there’s a chance for us to save the day for me yet. To save the day for both of us. Maybe my solution — our solution — lies there. Heavens, Cliff, let’s lose no time. Where can van Twillingham be found? Let’s ring him at once. It’s a chance — but it’s the only one I’ve — we’ve — got.”

Carson shook his head. “Take it easy,” he said. “Van Twillingham is somewhere on his way East now, on some secret and personal business. Perhaps connected with his divorce case, who knows? He made the offer by way of the newspaper reporters just before leaving this morning. His divorce trial is postponed for a few days. He doesn’t get back till Thursday morning. He has arranged to see aspirants for the prize all day Thursday at his Astor Street residence.”

“Then it’s all up,” said Cary hopelessly, “for this is only Monday. It’s all up.”

“Well, with Mrs. Galioto not coming in here before Thursday, it isn’t all up so far as paying her the ten thousand dollars for her stock certificate goes,” agreed Carson. “But,” he added ruefully, “it’s certainly up so far as the time goes — with respect to your deficit at the bank. In the first place, Thursday won’t do you any good with a bank examiner coming down on your books tomorrow. And in the second place, there’ll be literally dozens and dozens of aspirants for that prize. You’ll be only one of many people trying to pull down that money. I have always felt that that idea of yours is the nearest one that will ever be evolved towards making a safe impregnable — secure against all comers; and if anyone has a better scheme, I’d give a good deal to know what it is. While your idea is adaptable chiefly to a man who has the money to thoroughly carry it out, van Twillingham has the money. Of course his offer is in many respects an expensive and drastic effort to refute the imputations cast against him by his wife’s charges, but this doesn’t mean that the best idea submitted Thursday won’t pull down the prize.” Carson bit his underlip in his own agitation of thought. “But Thursday might as well be a year from Thursday for any good it can do us on the bank matter. That’s plain. Oh, for only some word that your father is alive. If we could get it, we could hold back on that quitclaim tomorrow, go to the bank and explain that your father owns a half-share in that rich tract in new Outer Ravenswood, and possibly stave off the publicity and prosecution until the bank could learn from him what he was willing to do with regards to your defalcation.” Carson shook his head and heaved a sigh that might better have come from the other.

As for Cary Desmond he remained silent a long while, sunk in his own thoughts. At last he straightened up in his chair. He spoke. His voice had taken on a marked calmness, a resignation. “Cliff, old man, don’t rouse yourself all up about my miserable mess. I’ve done you in badly enough — although God knows, as I explained, it wasn’t intentional so far as your affairs went — and you’ve got quite enough to worry about — what I’ve just handed you! So far as my end goes, I’m going to take my medicine, and take it without a whimper. In my first panic after I left the bank today I had a wild idea that maybe there would be some way to save me. And I hot-footed it over to you. But I realize mighty well that there is no way. I’ve done it; that ends it. I’m more sorry, Cliff, for you — and in turn for you and Marcia — than I am for myself. I’ve been a selfish rotter. If I had it to do all over again I’d cut out living in fashionable bachelor apartments, and I’d stay home with Marcia and Granddad — I’d help stoke the furnace in winter, and put up screens in summer, and contribute part of my money to keeping things up. I’d see that the little kid had an easier row to hoe. But what’s the use now of saying what I’d do? I’ve shot my bolt. And since I’ve come to you in advance, it will give you a chance to break the news to Marcia before the publicity. I’m going on back to my rooms now. In the morning I’m going straight back to the bank while the examiner is there. I’m going to confess — I’m going to take my medicine.” He laughed, just a little bit hysterically. “As for tonight, it’ll be my last free one for eight or nine years. I’m going to make it one to remember. I’m going on to the Earl Carroll Vanities that I already had a ticket for, and I’m going to have some glorious feed after it in the toniest restaurant in town.” He laughed again, the tone of the laugh showing that he was slightly unstrung. “I’ve got twenty dollars, Cliff. I’m going to spend ‘em all before the doors of the county jail close on me.” He fumbled down in his breast pocket and drew up a slender length of printed paper on which some written words had evidently been filled in. “But before I go, I’d better give you this — which unfortunately isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

“What is it?” Carson said gruffly. He took it from the other’s outstretched fingers.

“A note — my promissory note for ten thousand dollars — the value of that stock certificate that I did you out of.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Worth nothing, old chap, but it’s written evidence at least that I’m in on you to the tune of ten thou. I’m also going to write you a letter tonight stating all the facts, and you’ll have that too.” He laughed unhappily. “Won’t do you any good — ”

“No, I know it, but I’ll take it,” put in Carson, folding up the paper. “As you say, it’s at least some sort of evidence anyway that I didn’t default with the certificate.” He tucked it away in his own breast pocket. He looked at his watch. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to think hard, Cary. In the meantime where can I get you by telephone if I have to?”

“At the Bradley Arms on Oak Street till seven o’clock tonight,” said the young fellow in a low voice. “After that I’ll be at the Selwyn Theatre — in seat C-3-Center. Then the Club Madrid till about 1 A.M. Then home. And that winds up my career as a disciple of the gay life.” He rose and put on his derby hat. “Thanks, Cliff, for not bawling me out. Heaven knows I hate myself all over badly enough as it is. You’re a real thoroughbred. You haven’t made it worse.”

“I couldn’t do that,” replied Carson miserably. “I’ve got an awful job ahead of me — to have to tell Marcia about it.” He paused. A sudden dreadful explanation of that promissory note occurred to him. He looked at the other sharply. “Now whatever you do, don’t do anything rash, Cary. No suicide — nothing like that, boy. I have one last desperate attempt to make. I might as well tell you what it is. I’m going to Matthias Smock — I’m going to try to raise his ante for the price of your father’s quitclaim — I’m going to try to make him pay twenty thousand dollars for it instead of two thousand dollars. If by any chance I could — you can square yourself all around. And if I could get him to pay just a half of that — we could still save you at the bank.”

Cary paused in the door. “Good old Cliff. Always working like the devil for somebody else. But, old man, you’ll never succeed. You don’t know Father’s cousin as Marcia and I do. Smock is as hard as nails, and equally as stubborn. He wouldn’t budge one dollar over the amount he has offered. Anyway — Cliff — find out from the bank in the morning where I’m locked up, and communicate with me there. Good-bye.”

And he left, the door closing behind him. Carson, releasing the button latch of that same door, dropped once more unhappily back into his own chair. And thus he sat amid his own melancholy reflections when a figure darkened the glazed pane, and then entered. Looking in the direction of the visitor, Carson found it to be no other than Mr. Jake Jennings, who, true to his statement over the telephone, was on the minute. Mr. Jennings made a somewhat exaggerated bow, and dropped down upon the edge of the visitor’s chair. He drew from his pocket a thick roll of money. “Won’t take up a minute of your time, my boy. Just sixty seconds — no more. Came in to settle up with you for that little advertising bill of mine.” He opened the roll and looked up expectantly. “What did she come to? I saw the ad in the last edition of tonight’s Post, just out on the stands.”

“The bill for the advertising plus the broadcast, Mr. Jennings,” Carson informed him, “came to exactly $103.35, but the ads can be canceled before they have completed their three-day runs. That would reduce the charges. Care to see the separate items? And incidentally, the ad will go on the air tonight.”

Mr. Jennings waved away the very suggestion with a grandiloquent forward movement of his fat palm. He peeled from his plethoric roll in quick succession ten worn ten-dollar bills, a worn two and a greasy one-dollar note, which separate pile he topped with a silver quarter and a dime from his pants pocket. “There you are,” he said genially. “Correct to the last penny you’ll find it. Receipt? Forget it, young man. Gentlemen don’t need receipts, eh, what?” He returned his roll to his pocket, and lighted a cigar. “Well, I won’t detain you, for I suppose you’re busy. Nice little place you’ve got here. Perhaps some day you’ll tell me just what sort of business this is?” He gazed with undisguised curiosity about the nondescript walls, but pressed the question no further. “Well, I’m off.” He rose. “I’ve all the confidence in the world that we’ll locate this Zuri snake, and that you and the little lady will be richer by two hundred and fifty dollars when we do. I only hope that we locate the right one. Always a chance, you know, that in a big city like Chicago there might be one or two in captivity — and somebody owning one of ‘em might try to put it over on us. Won’t do. Won’t do at all. I’ll catch ‘em if they try anything like that. Just you call in Jake Jennings as soon as you get hold of a Zuri, and he’ll know the right one soon’s he gives it the once-over. I’m saying so!”

But Carson was paying less attention to the man’s blatant talk than he was to the latter’s left hand. The old-fashioned square blue-white diamond that had reposed there earlier in the day was now gone, as well as was the indisputably Chinese ring in which it sat, that ring which showed two Buddhas joined waist to waist. And suddenly something came over Carson with remarkable swiftness: There were others than Cary in the world who were operating on shoestrings. Mr. Jake Jennings had had to pawn his ring to provide the advertising expenses alone toward securing the Zuri snake. Where and how was he going to raise two hundred and fifty dollars, let alone one thousand dollars, toward rewarding the finder and paying his agents? On the other hand, perhaps the disappearance of the ring was merely a symptom of a purely temporary financial stringency of Mr. Jennings. At least it was too early in the game to endeavor to catalogue Mr. Jennings in the realm of things pecuniary.

So Carson rose. His reply was quiet, businesslike. “Good-bye, Mr. Jennings. I’ll call you promptly at the National Hotel the minute anything material develops from the ad.”

Mr. Jake Jennings bowed. His heavy watch chain flapped across his vest. His flabby muscles hung out as he projected his torso from the vertical position to the horizontal position and back again. His tricky, crafty grey eyes held a peculiar gleam in them. Then he was gone.

Again Carson dropped back to his desk. He dismissed Mr. Jennings promptly from his mind, and once more fell to thinking upon this thing that Cary Desmond had propelled into his affairs. Could that unpleasant and unhappy contretemps yet, in some way, affect Carson’s own marriage to the little brown-eyed girl on St. Giles Lane? He sighed deeply. Then he listlessly took up his afternoon’s mail which lay stacked upon his desk.

One by one he opened the envelopes with his slender steel opener. A long-delayed receipt from the agents of the building for the first month’s office rent, relayed around from Washington, came in one: in another, a proof of the photograph he had loaned one of the newspaper reporters who had written up the new Bureau of Mining Stock Investigation; a quotation on bungalows, which he had requested from a contractor, came in the third. A fourth held a short letter of congratulation from a former classmate at the College of Mines; and a fifth contained an analysis of a suspicious mineral sample submitted to a chemist. One by one he disposed of the various contents, and at last only a big legal-size envelope with typewritten address remained. It bore no return card in the upper left-hand corner, he noted absently, as he slit it open. And when on withdrawing the contents he found those contents consisted only of a pink advertising blotter, he reached with the fingers of one hand in his vest pocket for the key to his desk drawers so that he could lock up and call the day closed. But he was destined not to withdraw that key, for as he flipped over the blotter with his free hand to see whose advertisement was printed upon its glazed surface, a peculiar electrical shock seemed to flow through his being. There on that glazed white surface was no advertisement, but a message — not a message written by hand, but one carefully spelled out by the leaden slugs of a printer’s case. It bore two names and two only. One of those names belonged to the man whose eyes devoured its significant letters — the other belonged to one who was both presumably dead and missing. And as Carson continued to rivet his eyes unbelievingly upon the few words which stared back at him in bright black type, by some devious mechanism of psychology the van Twillingham divorce suit, now filling the papers, and particularly that part of the suit which devolved about Reggie van Twillingham’s charges against Dolly van Twillingham, flowed through Carson’s mind like a strip of celluloid, lightning-fast in its speed. The name at the top — the name at the bottom — but only the names — were deliberately, meticulously spaced out. And with a palpable irregularity, moreover, designed to call attention unequivocally to that very fact. And thus they presented their brief injunction — a veritable flash from out the dark: —

As though riveted in that position, one hand still hooked on the pocket containing his desk key, one hand holding the blotter, Carson continued to stare down at the glazed surface with its black type. “Do as you like with the money in your hands for thirty days,” he repeated slowly. “Do as you like — ” He removed his hand from his key pocket, and sat back in his swivel chair, still trying to collect his thoughts. He gazed unbelievingly at the message. “To me — and from Henry Desmond. What — what — does it mean? What can it mean? ‘The money in your hands.’ “ He seized the big empty envelope and peered into it, in every corner. There was no money there. He glimpsed its postmark now, and found that it had been mailed from Hammond, Indiana. He looked down at the floor. There was nothing there. He picked up the blotter again. Money? There was no money in his hand. Only a simple rectangle of blotting paper stock with its porous pink side unsmirched by even the tiniest drop of ink — with its opposite side of white glazed paper bearing thirteen cryptic words signed in type only by the last name in the world Carson ever anticipated receiving through the mails. Could it be a hoax — a practical joke — played by someone who had access to a printer’s case and who knew that he was the man who was going to marry Marcia Desmond?

He concentrated his gaze on the blotter and bit his lips in his perplexity. Then for the first time he became conscious that the blotter was rather thick — just a wee bit short of being bulky. And on top of this realization an idea smote him with such force that it literally staggered him. He seized the slender steel paper-knife from his desk and inserted it carefully between the tough glazed layer of the blotter and the porous, fibrous layer to which it clung. The two layers split apart easily. He peeled away and in a jiffy caught a glimpse of something crisp in texture and golden-yellow in color. Figures came into view almost at the same time. A second later he had seized the two layers with his hands and stripped them entirely apart, the top one curling up as though in protest at such harsh treatment. And if any doubt had existed in Carson’s mind thus far that Henry Desmond, the dead, had been heard from, and not a joker instead, that doubt was entirely removed. For the rectangular strip of crisp yellow paper carefully concealed between the two layers of the blotter, each pasted only around its respective edges, was a United States Federal Reserve bank note.

It was of an issue that had been made but a few months before.

It was payable in gold.

And it was for twenty thousand dollars.