Читать книгу The Running Fight - William Hamilton Osborne - Страница 5

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"What the deuce is that machine doing in front of my place?" were the words that Peter V. Wilkinson spoke as his eyes lighted upon the dark blue limousine that had been standing for so long a time before his house.

"Whose machine is it?" answered Flomerfelt, who had not yet recognised it. But a moment more he emitted a whistle and whispered softly under his breath: "By George, it's hers!"

Wilkinson's eyes bulged with anger.

"What does she mean by coming here?" He clutched Flomerfelt's shoulder as in a vise. "You don't suppose she's come to see my wife, do you? What's she up to? Why, I wouldn't have even little Pallister see her for the world! And as for Leslie! Thunder and lightning, if Leslie finds this out—anything but that!"

Wilkinson started toward the blue machine, bent on interviewing the chauffeur.

"Look here, my man——" he began; but whatever imprecations he intended to hurl at the chauffeur's head never passed his lips, for then it was that something happened: a strange, dishevelled figure dashed suddenly into the group, threw itself upon Wilkinson and seized him by the throat. With almost maniacal energy the assailant forced Wilkinson up against the blue machine, and digging his fingers into that gentleman's wind-pipe, he cried:

"Now, Wilkinson, I'm going to even up matters with you!"

Wilkinson's face turned blue—almost as blue as the machine—and his eyes bulged out almost like the headlights in front of it.

"Help! Help!" implored Wilkinson, tugging at the wrists of iron that held him.

His call was quickly answered. And in an incredibly short space of time, the Pinkerton men had broken the madman's grip and held him fast. Wilkinson quickly regained his composure. Then half-wondering, half-fearful, he riveted his eyes upon this enemy who seemed to have dropped from the skies, while Flomerfelt came out from behind the touring car where he had warily awaited the outcome of the sudden onslaught.

"So it has come to this! Why, Ilingsworth, what's the matter with you?" ejaculated Wilkinson. "What have I done to you?"

But before Ilingsworth could answer, the Pinkerton men had hustled him into the Mastodon, and were holding him there.

"Shall we surrender him, Mr. Wilkinson?" they asked.

Wilkinson glanced at Flomerfelt, presumably, for advice. But when the other was about to speak, Wilkinson evidently changed his mind, for waving him aside with his hand, he strode to the side of the Mastodon and looking Ilingsworth full in the face, after a moment's hesitation, said:

"Not yet; I don't want the authorities to have him yet. I may want to talk to him first. Suppose you bring him into the house." And with that, he turned on his heel, and, striding through the entrance to his home, past his two footmen who were quaking in their boots, walked into the arms of his daughter.

"What's the matter, father?" she cried.

Wilkinson brushed her aside, for the business of the moment was too weighty.

"Flomerfelt," he directed, in a low voice, "tell them to take Ilingsworth into a reception-room—that one there, and hold him until I send for him."

Leslie took her father's arm and led him into the Den. With almost a mother's anxious gaze she looked him over.

"Are you hurt?" she inquired. "I saw—I could just make out something—somebody attacking—it was all so quick—but I heard your voice, and then I ran downstairs. But you're safe—safe!" and she patted his arm affectionately. "Oh, what was the trouble?"

Wilkinson sank down into his desk-chair.

"Let me pull myself together first," he said. His heavy form sprawled itself across the seat, and he panted with the unwonted fright he had had. Now he lit a black cigar.

"Confound it, Leslie!" he returned at length, "the man scared me—blamed if he didn't. There was murder in his eyes."

Leslie had not seen Ilingsworth, neither did she know that he was a prisoner in another room.

"Whose eyes?" she asked, eagerly. "What man?"

Wilkinson turned his glance full upon her.

"A man you never heard of, girlie—a man you never saw—a business man, Giles Ilingsworth——"

He got no further, for she was at his side now, her hand upon his arm.

"Then he did mean murder! He did, I know he did!" she exclaimed, greatly excited.

Wilkinson had been wiping his brow; this operation ceased with a start and he searched her face.

"How do you know he did, girlie?" he asked suspiciously.

At that instant the lean and cat-like Flomerfelt entered the room and stood beside the girl. Immediately, with a feminine aversion written on her face, Leslie withdrew and stood in the doorway, still trembling and afraid.

"How do you know that he meant murder?" persisted Wilkinson.

"I'll come back later, father, and tell you why," she said, leaving the room, and hastening toward the staircase.

Flomerfelt moved slowly in the direction of the door and watched her go, then noiselessly retraced his steps, and seated himself opposite the financier. There was no cringing in the manner of this confidential man of Wilkinson's; on the contrary, his attitude toward his employer was that of man to man.

"The only decent thing about you, Peter V.," he said impudently to the multi-millionaire, "is your daughter Leslie."

Wilkinson's face plainly showed his annoyance, nevertheless he said:

"Flomerfelt, it would be well for you to leave my daughter Leslie out of this—out of everything, you understand?"

Flomerfelt smiled.

"Leaving her out, then, I will revise my former statement. There are two good things about you: one is Flomerfelt, your very necessary confidant; the other is——" he started to say "your chiefest luxury, Miss Madeline Braine,"—but he didn't say it; for Wilkinson brought his clenched hand down upon the desk with great force.

"Come, get down to the business in hand! Remember that you are dealing with Peter V. Wilkinson." He paused, and then added with a smile full of meaning: "Despite his being a ruined bank president."

Flomerfelt shook off his air of sinister sarcasm, squared his elbows on the desk, and was all attention.

"Now, then," continued Wilkinson, "what are we going to do with—with this incubus Ilingsworth?"

"Jug him, Peter! The man is dangerous—he's a bad one."

Wilkinson pulled away at his black cigar. This was a problem and he liked problems. Ilingsworth was in his power, and Wilkinson did not intend to let his chance slip by. Just then his eyes chanced to light on the scareheads of the extras on his desk:

Tri-State Trust Company Closes Its Doors

But the magnate felt no sensation on reading them. That very afternoon, for that matter, he had seen thousands of them on the streets; and so, they moved him not at all. Nevertheless, he tossed one to Flomerfelt.

"Pretty serious predicament, eh, Flomerfelt?" he said easily.

Coolly, Flomerfelt rose, reached over for a cigar and lighted it.

"There are only two men in this city who can handle a situation of that kind," he answered significantly.

Wilkinson merely raised his eyebrows.

"And these two," Flomerfelt continued, "have got to work together. If they don't——" His eye caught the other's glance and held it. "If they don't, chief, the devil take the hindmost."

Peter V. Wilkinson laughed until he was red in the face.

"You blamed upstart!" he burst out. "Do you think that Peter V. Wilkinson isn't able to go it alone?"

"I know he isn't," emphatically.

Wilkinson sprang to his feet.

"Why, you infernal idiot!" he shouted. "Who conceived the scheme of transferring fifty millions of securities of my own to those broken capitalists, Ellenbogen, Glackner & Gilroy, and of taking over a hundred millions of wild-cat stocks! Who thought of having the stock—the good stock, on the books, transferred to the names of these three men, and then having them pass it over to an unknown holder—Leslie Wilkinson! And who thought of sending these three men to different parts of Europe, where they can't be found! Let those who will, ask questions of me—you know what answer they'll get! Let them ask questions of me!" he went on, swelling in the pride of generalship. "My records show that I'm ruined. Let them ask questions of Leslie Wilkinson—who's got the stuff, and who doesn't know she's got it—what will they find out? Who else is there to ask? Three inaccessible old fools who'll stay where we put 'em until it all blows over. Who conceived that scheme? And who framed another that disposed of thirty-five more millions? Tell me that, eh? Was it you?"

Flomerfelt's smile was a sneer. In turn, he rose and looked his chief full in the face, his own small, ferret eyes alight with contempt.

"It may have taken a good man to conceive the scheme, but it took a better man to put these things into execution, to——"

Wilkinson laughed.

"To do the dirty work," he interposed, contemptuously.

Flomerfelt nodded.

"Have it that way if you will, chief," he assented. "It's dirty work any way you may put it. However, don't you forget one thing, it was I that did it—and doing it, I did what no one else could do."

For a brief interval the two men stood glaring at each other. It was Flomerfelt who, at the last, lowered his eyes.

"Well, have it so, Flomerfelt," Wilkinson was speaking now, "we won't quarrel. Perhaps we do belong together—at any rate, you get pay enough...."

"No, not enough," Flomerfelt mused half-aloud, for his thoughts had travelled through the closed door, into the hall without, had climbed up the stairs and were centred on Leslie Wilkinson in the room above.

Wilkinson resumed his seat.

"What are we going to do with Ilingsworth," he began. "That's the first proposition. You say to——"

"Jug him," finished Flomerfelt. "Take the offensive. Make the first move."

Wilkinson snorted.

"That's where your 'prentice hand shows up, just as I knew it would. I'm going to let him go."

Flomerfelt started.

"What!" he ejaculated.

Wilkinson grinned. Slowly he gathered together the newspapers littering his desk and deposited them in the waste-basket. Then he turned to Flomerfelt.

"Now, you whippersnapper of an understudy," he paused a moment, "the reason I'm going to let him go, is because I'm going to lay the blame of this whole thing on Giles Ilingsworth. See?"

Flomerfelt looked at the extras, at his chief, at the walls, the hangings—now still as death they were—and at the floor. Then he rose and paced the floor with that noiseless tread of his. Finally he stopped, and swinging his lithe body about, once more faced his chief.

"By George, Wilkinson, you're great!" he exclaimed. "Ilingsworth a scapegoat! How did you ever think of it?"

"When did I think of it would be more to the purpose," returned his chief, not without pride. "I thought of it as I think of everything—in a flash—while you were trying to induce me to surrender him. Somebody's got to bear the brunt of this—he's the new blood that's wrecked us—he and his crowd, so why not he, eh? Why not?"

Flomerfelt's thin lips widened into a diabolical grin.

"How are you going to do it, Wilkinson?"

His chief did not reply immediately. His hesitation made the other's grin widen all the more.

"I'll have to work that out, Flomerfelt," presently he said, "but I'll do it. He might as well smart as anyone else. Besides, what will it amount to, anyway? An investigation—censure—a few bribes—and—— The rest of us can go to Europe and enjoy ourselves until it's blown over."

"If it ever blows over," put in Flomerfelt. Then he stretched out his arm and laid his long, lean fingers on the sleeve of Wilkinson's coat.

"Peter V.," he said in a low voice, "I'll give you credit in this, as well as in other things; but let me tell you something: while you've been mumbling here, I've worked your idea out—sketched in the details."

"You don't say!" cried Wilkinson. "Good boy! Well?" And he looked at him questioningly.

But Flomerfelt shook his head.

"No, chief, I'll work it out myself. But I'll say this much, I've got a hold on nearly every man in the Tri-State Trust Company, the Interstate also. There are things to be done, things to be sworn to, and only I know how...." He withdrew his hand. "The question is, Wilkinson," he went on, "am I to get good pay?... This thing is more serious than you think. It won't blow over, take my word for it. A million people in three States are up in arms; what's more, District Attorney Murgatroyd is up in arms, too."

"You get paid well enough, Flomerfelt, I should think."

"Not well enough," he declared. And again his thoughts went aloft to the daughter of his chief.

Wilkinson touched a button; in silence the two men waited for it to be answered. In a somewhat irritated manner Wilkinson touched it again, and thundered out:

"What's become of the servants?"

Flomerfelt leaned over in alarm.

"The wires—the wires are cut!" he exclaimed. "The telephone is disconnected," he went on, his face growing ashen with the fear and mystery of it all.

Wilkinson's excitement was evidenced by the manner in which he shook his finger in the other's face, called him a fool, and ordered him to go and fetch the servants that they might explain how the thing occurred. And he ended with: "Go now, be quick about it!"

At the door, Flomerfelt stopped. In the entrance was Leslie.

"These wires have been tampered with!" he cried out to her. "Does anybody in this house know how?"

Leslie ignored the question, but instead she said:

"Mrs. Wilkinson wishes to speak with you, Mr. Flomerfelt. You will find her upstairs, in her boudoir."

Flomerfelt bowed.

"I'll go up with you at once," he told her; but Leslie shook her head.

"No, you'd better go alone. I know about the wires. I came down expressly to tell father about them."

Flomerfelt reddened with annoyance, nevertheless he started to leave the room.

"I say," called out Wilkinson after him, "tell those Pinkertons to drive Ilingsworth away down-town—take him to any place he wants to go, set him loose. If he runs away, you understand, it will be all the better for us. And if he doesn't, it will be all the worse for him."

"I'll take care of it, Mr. Wilkinson," said Flomerfelt, adopting the prefix that he used in the presence of a third party. "The plan is yours; the details belong to me."

With considerable trepidation Leslie approached her father.

"You're not going to set that Mr. Ilingsworth free!" she begged. "Father, don't do it! He's dangerous! I told you he had murder in his mind—I saw it to-day."

Little by little Wilkinson drew from her the whole story, with the exception of her father's terrible arraignment by Giles Ilingsworth; and that, for reasons of her own, she left out of her recital.

"Come, come," demanded Wilkinson, shrewdly reading his daughter's face, "you haven't told me everything! I want to know the rest."

The girl looked away as she said falteringly:

"The rest is nothing—really, there is nothing to tell."

"If it's nothing, then you'd better tell it to me anyway," he persisted. "Come, dear, what is it that you're holding back?"

For a moment that seemed minutes to her father, Leslie hid her face upon his shoulder, and did not speak. Finally she broke out with:

"Only something that he told me that I know is false; but if you must know, I'll tell you what he said...."

On the floor above, Mrs. Peter V. Wilkinson, still in her flowered-silk kimona, received her husband's confidential man.

"Sit there," she directed, pointing to a chair close to the sofa on which now she was reclining, propped up by numberless bright-hued silken pillows.

Flomerfelt did as he was bid, not omitting to kiss the hand that she had extended to him.

"Now, Flomerfelt," she began, an anxious look on a face that was usually expressionless, "I want to know just where I stand in all this. For if there's going to be a crash, I want to know precisely what I've got—that is, how much money?"

Flomerfelt did not answer at once.

"You know," he said slowly, "that it has not been the custom of Peter V. to give money to his wife, rather, I should say, to put money in her name. Like every other business man, he has always needed ready cash, and——"

"But how do I stand?" she interrupted, impatiently. "What have I got? Tell me; I must know."

"Well, to begin with, there are your jewels," he declared. "They are worth thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands."

"And this house stands in my name, doesn't it?" she asked, brushing away the question of a few hundred thousands.

"It does," was his brief answer, but without enthusiasm.

"And the house is worth at least ten million dollars, isn't it?" she went on, with some show of satisfaction. "That's what it cost to build."

Flomerfelt shook his head.

"I should say that it cost much less."

"What!" she gasped. "Why, everybody says it did. The papers...."

Flomerfelt thought a moment.

"I should think four million was an outside figure," he declared. "I know Peter V. doesn't consider it worth more than that."

"Well, four million is something, at any rate," she returned, mollified. "I can live on that."

Flomerfelt began to pace the room.

"The difficulty with it, Mrs. Peter V., is that it is mortgaged. The trust companies hold mortgages on it to the extent of five million dollars, at least."

Mrs. Wilkinson reached forth and drew him back into his seat.

"Do sit down, Flomerfelt!" she cried; "and don't be a fool! What do you mean by telling me that the property isn't worth more than four million, and that, notwithstanding that, the trust companies have loaned five million on it—more than its value? What trust company would do a thing like that?"

Flomerfelt's gaze took in the lady of the flowered-silk kimona from the sole of her foot to the top of her head.

"Um—such trust companies as the Interstate and Tri-State." He paused a moment, and then added: "With such a man as Giles Ilingsworth handling the reins——"

"Giles Ilingsworth!" she broke in. "Who is Giles Ilingsworth? Why, I never heard of him."

Flomerfelt looked at her in well-feigned astonishment.

"You never heard of Giles Ilingsworth! He was the power behind the throne—the man who wrecked the companies—who did more, who wrecked Peter V. Wilkinson." He made a movement to go. "There is nothing further I can do for you, I suppose, Mrs. Peter V.——?"

For the briefest of moments the lady gazed at him in silent contemplation. Then motioning him again to sit beside her,—which he did,—she drew his head down close to her lips, and patted it affectionately.

"Flomerfelt, you're a good friend of mine?" she said.

Wilkinson's confidential man straightened up.

"That depends on how good a friend you are of mine," he answered, looking her full in the face.

The eyes of Margaret Lane Wilkinson narrowed.

"You do your best to see that I don't come out at the little end of the horn, Flomerfelt—take care of my interests, even against——"

"Even against Peter V. Wilkinson," breathed Flomerfelt.

"Even against Peter V. Wilkinson," breathed the woman. There was a pause, and presently she added: "On every occasion, no matter what the question, I shall agree with you."

"You forget to take into consideration that there's a girl named Leslie Wilkinson, who——"

She stopped him with a concluding gesture.

"No, not for one moment have I forgotten her," she affirmed. "If the worst comes to the worst, Leslie has enough to keep us both."

Flomerfelt bent over her.

"It's a bargain," he announced. "We'll seal it with a kiss."

"Why, Mr. Flomerfelt, I never have kissed anybody except Peter V.," she simpered, blushing all the while.

"I couldn't help it," he told her on leaving, and passing through the door, closed it gently behind him. On the second landing he stopped and thought a while. "Not a bad scheme, that scheme of hers," he mused to himself. "She doesn't altogether realise that if the time ever comes when we fight Wilkinson, she and I, that we will be fighting a man still worth a hundred million dollars. At any rate," he concluded, "my game is first to fight for Wilkinson, and then—against him."

Meanwhile, in her boudoir, the lady had hastened to the mirror to contemplate her fairness.

"He's not such a bad chap, after all, that Flomerfelt," she acknowledged to herself.