Читать книгу The Mystery Of The Second Shot - Rufus Gillmore - Страница 4

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Overhauling the past of a prominent citizen is frequently very like turning over flat stones in a moist meadow. Under the smooth exterior, one should prepare to come upon the slime of hidden motives and all manner of loathsome things scurrying from the light of day.

When Bertrand Newhall, by organizing the Wool Trust, played the part of a pirate in modern business, conservative Boston sneered. When, a few years later, he was caught red-handed in the act of seizing control of the historic Province Trust Company, conservative Boston stopped sneering and began to fight. But Bertrand Newhall was one not only reckless of all Boston business traditions, but also one whose hand was never discerned at its work until the issue was certain. When they sought to snatch from him the presidency of the Province Trust Company, he deftly checkmated every move. When, defeated, they fell to predicting the speedy downfall of this fine old institution, he merely smiled. He could afford to smile. The contest had served to demonstrate to all Boston that this bank was as utterly his as if he had it buttoned inside of his steel-gray waistcoat.

His success against such a powerful alliance of interests made him, through the aid of the newspapers, a man of mark. City editors, sensing in him that disturbance which is news, had played him up as one who fought “the interests.” When he triumphed, they had worked up public interest to a pitch which lent a news value to the printing of his very name. But one side of his character they discreetly avoided. By instinct Bertrand Newhall seemed always to select the way to his ends likely to provoke the most resistance. And never an enemy arose in his path but he stopped to punish him. It is an important principle of successful business men to accept opposition serenely, to waste no time seeking revenge. Bertrand Newhall was an exception. In his malevolent pursuit of an enemy there was never any let up; it revealed a fixity of purpose and a sly cunning amounting to mania.

Bertrand Newhall started the Wool Trust to destroy a competitor in the wool business who had dared to obstruct one of his earlier schemes. His Wool Trust—an enterprise cunning and ruthless as Newhall himself—engaged to transfer the wool of producers direct to consumers on a cooperative basis. Its success would have wiped out one of the city’s foremost trades. Boston wool dealers aligned themselves against it. They closed in and compelled the banks to call their loans to Newhall. But just as they thought that they had him, he suddenly loomed up in control of the Province Trust Company. With a resentment which was characteristic, he now started to punish the banks which had withdrawn their assistance by offering to pay two and one-half and even three per cent, interest upon many of their depositors’ running accounts.

Soon after he won his trust company fight, his first enemy in the wool trade—an old man named Thorpe—stole away to his unoccupied summer home and killed himself. Those acquainted with Bertrand Newhall’s relentless processes knew him to be responsible for the ruin, if not the actual death, of this old man. But what he had done, he had done legitimately, according to the rules of that form of civilized warfare called “business.” No newspaper cared to flirt with libel by laying the crime at his door. In fact, most of them were too deeply involved in making a popular idol of Bertrand Newhall. Moreover, at this juncture, he sent them word that he had just insured his life for half a million dollars. This was a huge policy for any business man to carry on his life at that time. The Boston newspapers featured this news instead.

The long fight against the wool trade had reduced the Wool Trust to an anemic and tottering condition. After Bertrand Newhall assumed charge of his bank, the Wool Trust took on a more healthy outward aspect. President Newhall’s enemies—and they were many by this time—insinuated that this improvement was due to a secret process of blood transfusion from the Province Trust Company. They declared that Newhall had already dissipated his own private means, that he was now engaged—illegally—in transferring the resources of the trust company to his earlier enterprise. But they could offer no proof, and city editors came to regard the insinuations of these men whom Newhall had out-generaled, as founded upon only rancor and spite. Bertrand Newhall, they credited with being too shrewd a man to violate the State Banking Laws.

But the modern newspaper flourishes on crime and has a greedy humor for suspicion. Ashley’s discovery of President Newhall’s sudden and carefully maneuvered exit threaded together all these old rumors. Followed one of those sensational man-hunts in which modern reporters, quicker of scent, get the start of the bigger-footed, smaller-headed police. All that afternoon, a steadily increasing number of reporters ransacked the city in a vain hunt for the missing man.

Ashley returned to The Eagle at about four that afternoon to learn that the police had just joined in the chase, that Newhall was now wanted for misapplication of the funds of the closed bank. With this news came that quick leap of the spirits known only to the reporter who has nosed out “a big story.” But his elation was short-lived.

Now that the police had confirmed Ashley’s suspicions, Henderson, the star-reporter of The Eagle, had taken over the assignment. To Henderson, the worst thing about life was that anyone else should succeed. Ashley had incurred his enmity a few months before by furnishing the clew which enabled the State Police to clear up the famous “Extension Bag Mystery.” Neither reporters nor police had attached any significance to certain faint figures in red chalk upon this grisly receptacle until Ashley, studying them under a microscope, had declared them to be a pawnbroker’s number. Immediately, the State Police had called in every Boston pawnbroker to identify the bag; the one who had sold it was discovered and a murderer run down. Henderson had not liked being beaten by a man on his own paper, and by “a heady young cub” at that. He had it in for Ashley; and all his fellow-reporters knew it.

Ashley found himself cut off midway in his report. Henderson turned his back on him and began coolly to send other reporters over the very ground which he had covered. Retiring to his desk, Ashley was compelled to witness man after man hurry out on the hunt and to feel the eyes of the others upon him, watching how he took his medicine. To add to the insult, Henderson on his way out was stopping casually to make remarks which meant much—and nothing. Ashley jumped up and intercepted him.

“See here, Henderson,” he said calmly, “just where do I fit?”

“Fit?” mocked Henderson, his tone bringing the attention upon them of every man in the room. “Fit!” he repeated. “Why, you don’t fit at all. You’re an accident, a left-over, a tin can on the dump so far as this case is concerned.” He started to pass.

Ashley took him by the arm. “I started this,” he protested, “and don’t you think for a minute that you’re going to lose me in the shuffle.”

Henderson jerked his arm free. “You mix in on this, and I’ll put it all over you,” he threatened; “all over you—so your best friend won’t know you.”

Ashley laughed. Henderson was a soft, spongy man whom he could have thrown like a pillow. His fingers itched—but he laughed.

Henderson’s cheeks turned the color of claret. “If you want to learn who’s boss here, just start something—that’s all I’ve got to say to you—just start something.” Without waiting for an answer, Henderson whirled about and left the office.

Shortly after eleven on that humid June night, Ashley bent his course once again in the direction of Newhall’s city residence. For almost twelve consecutive hours, he had hunted for the missing man without obtaining a single clew. Four times before that day he had returned to this deserted house only to pound vainly upon its boarded-up doors. His first vigorous will for the chase flagged, but the habit persisted, keeping him at it with a dull, senseless obstinacy like the second-wind of a runner.

Not a person was in sight as he turned into Commonwealth Avenue. The rows of deserted houses flung back at him in a persistent tattoo the echo of his own footsteps. The absence of people and all the companionable signs and sounds of life freed his mind, released his thoughts to the far places. For the first time that day the object of his search drifted unnoticed from mind.

Suddenly the door of one of the houses in the dead block was thrown violently open. A young woman burst out. Ashley stopped short, felt his heart cease to pump. It was as though he were crossing a graveyard alone at night; someone had suddenly stepped out from behind a tombstone.

She was fighting for air. She glanced wildly up and down the avenue, saw him, and came rushing down the stone steps. Almost before his mind began to register, she had reached and seized him by the arm.

“Come—come quick!” she gasped. She did not look at him, but towards the house. She did not heed his questions, but only tugged madly at his sleeve. A moment he held back, then he ran with her along the sidewalk, up the steps, into the house.

A few seconds later, Ashley was bending over the body of a man. It lay dull and without show of life upon a landing of the inside staircase to which the girl had dragged him. He turned it over and brought the face to view. Then he shot upright. Even in the dim light which came from a distant room in the hall above, he recognized the strong features. It was Bertrand Newhall.