Читать книгу Under Fire For Servia - Fiske James - Страница 2

Plucky and self-reliant as Dick Warner really was, he felt a good deal better when he emerged from Consul Denniston's office than when he had been trying to get by the barrier of clerks fifteen minutes earlier. Then he had been a good many thousand miles from home, and not only friendless in a strange and alien country, but possessed of a determined and unscrupulous enemy as well. He had told only the truth about Hallo, but he did not know everything, by any means, about the rich Hungarian who had cheated his widowed mother.

He had not been very long in Semlin, however, without making the discovery that here, in the old Hungarian town that faced the capital of Servia across the river Save, Mike Hallo was a far more important person than he had ever been in New York. The firm of Warner and Hallo had been a good, sound one in New York, and both partners had been comfortably well off. But in Semlin means that had not seemed very great in New York made a man the equivalent of a millionaire in America. Hallo lived in one of the finest houses of the city, and seemed to be looked up to and respected.

"Gee!" Dick had said to himself. "They seem to think as much of him here as people in New York do of J. P. Morgan or Andy Carnegie!"

Dick was boarding in Semlin. The extravagance of a hotel, he felt, was not for him. He had a considerable sum of money, which he always carried with him, in gold, wrapped in a belt, which never left him, but he knew this money might have to last him a long time, and if he could help it he was certainly not going to have to seek charity to get home. He wanted to paddle his own canoe; that was his favorite motto.

Dick hadn't seen Mike Hallo, to speak to him, since he had come to Semlin. He had seen him at a distance when Mike had been driving in an open carriage, and Mike had seen him, too. Dick had caught the flush on the sallow cheeks, and the look of hate that had sprung into his father's partner's narrow, beady eyes. Oh, yes, Mike knew he was in Semlin! And Dick did not underestimate the man's cleverness. It was just as sure as it could be that Hallo understood very well why he had come and what he hoped to do. Dick had tried to follow Mike's thoughts, too.

"He's a crook – he cheated my mother," Dick had said to himself. "And any man who would do a thing like that has got a yellow streak in him a mile wide. So it's a cinch he's afraid of me. He may think I can't do anything to hurt him, and all that, but he won't take any chances if he can help it, because he's a coward. He'll know he's in the wrong, even if he thinks he's got the law fixed, so that he couldn't be pinched, even if he went back to New York. But down at bottom, just because he himself knows that he's in the wrong, he'll be afraid. And he'll hate me, too, because he's done me an injury."

As a matter of fact, that was good reasoning, and showed that Dick had it in him to become a good judge of human nature. A man's worst enemy is always the one to whom he has done the greatest injury. It is much easier to forgive someone who has done one an injury than to retain a liking for the person one has hurt or cheated.

That morning, before he had gone to the consulate, the Semlin police had visited Dick. First they had asked for his passport and when he couldn't produce one, had told him that, as an English subject, he must leave the town within twenty-four hours.

"You go tell Mike Hallo I'm not afraid of him, even if he gets the whole Hungarian army after me!" Dick had said.

The policemen had only professed utter ignorance concerning Hallo, but Dick had not been deceived. He had not lived in New York without coming to the conclusion that a man with a great deal of money can command a good many things not at the disposal of ordinary people, and he was perfectly sure that it was Mike Hallo who was behind this sudden activity of the police in Semlin.

"He's a dirty sneak," he said to himself. "But I've got to get busy and call on Uncle Sam to help, or I'm apt to be chased out of here before I get a good crack at Mike. Even if I'm not afraid of him and the whole Hungarian army, it's a cinch that it wouldn't take more than a couple of Hungarian cops to put me on a train and see that I stayed there."

So, if he had not been frightened, Dick had been a good deal worried when he went to the consulate. His travels about Europe had shown him that over here things were allowed that would have been impossible at home, and that there is something more than a pretty line or two of poetry about the verse that sings of the land of the free. There wasn't much freedom, he had long since decided for himself, in countries like Austria and Hungary. Those who had influence with officials, like the police, or with the army, could do very much as they pleased, and those who didn't had to toe the mark whenever anyone in uniform told them to do so whether they liked it or no.

That was why he was able to leave the consulate with a light heart and a song on his lips. He had found a friend, and it seemed to him that a friend was a pretty good thing to have found here on the banks of the Danube, four thousand miles and more from the apartment on Washington Heights where his mother and his little sister, for whose sakes he had made his adventurous journey, were waiting for him. About Consul Denniston, busy as he was, and rather stern though his aspect had been in the beginning, there was something that made Dick feel that he would go through a good deal for the sake of anyone he had decided to befriend. So in the street Dick snapped his fingers at Semlin and the whole Austrian empire.

"That for Mike Hallo!" he said. "Well, I think I'll go and try to see the old boy! Wonder if he'll see me? They can't hang me for trying!"

He knew where Hallo was to be found. His office was in the warehouse that he owned. His trade was largely one with Russia and Roumania. Barges laden with products of all sorts from the interior came consigned to him, and were transshipped here at Semlin to the river steamers and other vessels that went down the Danube toward the sea. And so his warehouse was down by the river, whence an excellent view of the old, mysterious looking city of Belgrade could be had. Dick knew something of history, and he remembered that for centuries the high tide of the Turkish invasion had come as far as this and stopped. Christian and Turk in turn had held Belgrade and Semlin, and great battles had been fought many and many a time on the ground that he now trod.

But he forgot about ancient history when finally he stood outside of Hallo's warehouse. He went in boldly, not asking anyone for directions, until he came to a boy of about his own age on guard outside his own door. This boy took one look at him, and then, to his surprise, spoke to him in English.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, very politely.

"I'd like to see Mr. Hallo," said Dick.

"Right in here," said the other boy. "He's not busy just now."

"He will be, when he sees me," said Dick, and walked in.

Hallo was sitting at a table, looking over some papers. At the sound of Dick's entrance he looked up, and for just a moment Dick saw the same look of mingled fear and hatred in his eyes that he had caught when he had seen him driving. But then that look vanished, and Hallo, with an obvious effort, greeted Dick with the bluff heartiness that Dick remembered so well as his customary manner in the days before his father's death.

"Well, well, Dick Warner! My old friend's son! I am glad to see you, Dick! What brings you here, so far from New York?"

"Business, Mr. Hallo."

"You are starting young, Dick! May I ask what sort of business? And can I help you, or is this just a friendly visit to a man who held you on his knee when you were a baby back in New York?"

"Oh, cut that out, Mr. Hallo!" said Dick, disgusted. "You know mighty well why I'm here. I want to know what you're going to do about the way you cheated my mother. You told her the business in New York had failed, and she believed you. Now are you going to do the right thing?"

"I don't understand, Dick," said Hallo. Plainly he was trying to be very patient, and his whole manner was that of a kindly, genial man assailed by a bad little boy, but determined not to lose his temper. "Your father's estate was settled in the regular way. No one regretted his death more than I. The way things went afterward proved how important he was to the business. I lost a great deal of money in the failure, you know."

"You didn't!" said Dick. "Oh, we've got the goods on you, Mike Hallo! And I'll tell you something, too. Maybe there's nothing I can do to you here. I don't know yet – not until I've hired a lawyer who knows all about the sort of law you have here. But I know this much. You'll be wanting to come back to America sometime – you'll have to, on account of your business. And we've found out enough to fix it so that you'll be arrested the minute you step off the steamer on to American soil!"

This was a pure bluff, but it might be true, at that. What Dick did know was that Hallo had stolen money, and he was sure that, whether the law would make it possible to cause his arrest or not, it ought to make that not only possible, but easy. Beyond question, too, the statement had its effect. Hallo's small eyes were getting smaller and narrower, and though the smile was still on his face, he kept it there with an obvious effort.

"You hurt me, Richard," he said. "I did all I could for your mother. I tried in every possible way to cover up the mistakes your father made before he died – "

"You said just now that if he had lived things would have been all right! You don't want to mix up your stories that way, Mike! It won't sound well when they get you into court and try you!" retorted Dick, his temper quickly rising.

"I see that there is no use in talking to you," said Hallo, looking as if he felt more sorry than angry. "I regret very much that your mother is not so well off as she was once, but it is not my fault, and I am afraid that I am too busy to talk any more to you about this matter until you are in a better frame of mind. How long shall you be in Semlin?"

"You ought to know," said Dick. "How long can I hold out against your pull? If that goes back on you, you've still got the answer. Because I'm going to stay here until you either have me run out of town or come through with a check for the money you stole – and a check that I can get certified at the bank, too, before I take the train."

Hallo tried to look bewildered, and as if he did not understand what Dick meant, but the attempt was a poor one. His anger was rapidly passing all bounds.

"So long!" said Dick. "I'll see you again, Mike. I'll give you a tip, too. You'd better not try any monkey business with me, because Uncle Sam's right on the job. I'm not very important, you know, back in New York, but I'm an American! And I guess they'd just as soon send a gun-boat or two up that big river after me if there wasn't any other way of fixing things."

And on that word Dick turned and left the office. He had accomplished as much and as little as he had expected. He had forced a show-down, so that now matters between him and Hallo had come to a crisis. He had never expected Hallo to yield, of course, until he was forced to do so. In fact, he had done even better than he had hoped. He had expected to have some difficulty in getting speech with the man at all.

The boy who had let him into Hallo's office was waiting for him outside.

"Quick!" he whispered. "I am a friend. Tell me where you live. Perhaps I shall be able to help you – and you will need help!"