Chapter X
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The instant after the gong sounded Bob Brownley was alone on the floor at the foot of the president’s desk. His form was swaying like a reed on the edge of the cyclone’s path. I jumped to his side. His brother, who had during Bob’s harangue been vainly endeavouring to beat his way through the crowd, was there first. “For God’s sake, Bob, hear me. Word came from your house half an hour ago of the miracle: Beulah has awakened to her past. Her mind is clear; the nurses are frantic for you to come to her.”
He got no further. With a mad bellow and a bound, like a tortured bull that sees the arena walls go down, Bob rushed out through the nearest door, which, I thanked God, was a side one leading to the street where the crowd was thinnest. He cast a wild look around. His eyes lighted on an empty automobile whose chauffeur had deserted to the crowd. It was the work of a second to crank it; of another to jump into the front seat. Quick as had been his movement, I was behind him in the rear seat. With a bound the great machine leaped through the crowd.
“In the name of Christ, Bob, be careful,” I yelled, as he hurled the iron monster through the throng, scattering it to the right and left as the mower scatters the sheaves in the wheat fields. Some were crushed beneath its wheels. Bob Brownley heard not their screams, heard not the curses of those who escaped. He was on his feet, his body crouched low over the steering-wheel, which he grasped in his vise-like hands. His hatless head was thrust far out, as though it strove to get to Beulah Sands ahead of his body. His teeth were set, and as I had jumped into the machine I had noted that his eyes were those of a maniac, who saw sanity just ahead if he could but get to it in time. His ears were deaf not only to the howl of the terrified throng and the curses of the teamsters who frantically pulled their horses to the curb, but to my warnings as well. He swung the machine around the corner at New Street and into Wall as though it had been the broadest boulevard in the park. He took Wall Street at a bound I was sure would land us through the fence into Trinity’s churchyard. But no. Again he turned the corner, throwing the Juggernaut on its outside wheels from Wall Street into Broadway as the crowds on the sidewalk held their breath in horror. I, too, was on my feet, but crouching as I hung to the sides. Thank God, that usually crowded thoroughfare was free from vehicles as far up as I could see, on beyond the Astor House. What could it mean? Was that divinity which ’tis said protects the drunkard and the idiot about to aid the mad rush of this love-frenzied creature to his long-lost but newly returned dear one? I heard the frantic clang of gongs, and as we shot by the World Building, I saw ahead of us two plunging automobiles filled with men. ’Twas from them the gong clamour sounded. As we drew nearer. I saw that these were the cars of the fire chiefs answering a call. I thanked God again and again as I yelled into Bob’s ear, “For Beulah’s sake, Bob, don’t pass; if you do, we’ll run into a blockade. If we keep in the rear they’ll clear our way, and we may get to her alive.” I do not know whether he heard, but he held the machine in the rear of the other cars and did not try to pass. Away we went on our mad rush through crowded Broadway. At Union Square we lost our way-clearers. As our automobile jumped across Fourteenth Street into Fourth Avenue, Bob must have opened her up to the last notch, for she seemed to leap through the air. We sent two wagons crashing across the sidewalks into the buildings. Cries of rage arose above the din of the machine, and seemed to follow in our wake. Bob was dead to all we passed. His entire being seemed set on what was ahead. I knew he was an expert in the handling of the automobile, for since his misfortune, automobiling with Beulah Sands had been his favourite pastime, but who could expect to carry that plunging, swaying car to Forty-second Street! Bob seemed to be performing the wondrous task. We shot from curb to curb and around and in front of vehicles and foot passengers as though the driver’s eyes and hands were inspired.
Across the square at last and on up Fourth Avenue to Twenty-sixth Street. Then a dizzying whirl into Madison. Was he going to keep to it until he got to Forty-second Street and try to make Fifth Avenue along that congested block with its crush of Grand Central passengers and lines upon lines of hacks and teams? No. His head must be clear. Again he threw the great machine around the corner and into Fortieth Street. For a part of the block our wheels rode the sidewalk, and I awaited the crash. It did not come. Surely the new world Bob was speeding to must be a kind one, else why should Hag Fate, who had been at the steer-wheel of his life-car during the last five years, carry him safely through what looked a dozen sure deaths? Without slacking speed a jot we swung around the corner of Fortieth into Fifth Avenue. The road was clear to Forty-second; there a dense jam of cars, teams, and carriages blocked the crossing. Bob must have seen the solid wall for I heard his low muttered curse. Nothing else to indicate that we were blocked with his goal in sight. He never touched the speed controller, but took the two blocks as though shot from a catapult. The two? No, one, and three-quarters of the next, for when within a score of yards of the black wall he jammed down the brakes, and the iron mass ground and shook as though it would rend itself to atoms, but it stopped with its dasher and front wheels wedged in between a car and a dray. It had not stopped when Bob was off and up the avenue like a hound on the end-in-sight trail. I was after him while the astonished bystanders stared in wonder. As we neared Bob’s house I could see people on the stoop. I heard Bob’s secretary shout, “Thank God, Mr. Brownley, you have come. She is in the office. I found her there, quiet and recovered. She did not ask a question. She said, ‘Tell Mr. Brownley when he comes that I should like to see him.’ Then she ordered me to get the afternoon paper. I handed it to her an hour ago. I think she believes herself in her old office. I shut off the floor as you instructed. I did not dare go to her for fear she would ask questions. I have”—but Bob was up the stairs two and three steps at a time.
My breath was almost gone and it took me minutes to get to the second floor. My feet touched the top stair, when, O God! that sound! For five long years I had been trying to get it out of my ears, but now more guttural, more agonised than before, it broke upon my tortured senses. I did not need to seek its direction. With a bound I was at the threshold of Beulah Sands-Brownley’s office. In that brief time the groans had stilled. For one instant I closed my eyes, for the very atmosphere of that hall moaned and groaned death. I opened them. Yes, I knew it. There at the desk was the beautiful gray-clad figure of five years ago. There the two arms resting on the desk. There the two beautiful hands holding the open paper, but the eyes, those marvellous gray-blue doors to an immortal soul—they were closed forever. The exquisitely beautiful face was cold and white and peaceful. Beulah Sands was dead. The hell-hounds of the “System” had overtaken its maimed and hunted victim; it had added her beautiful heart to the bags and barrels and hogsheads stored away in its big “business-is-business” safe-deposit vaults. My eyes in sick pity sought the form of my old schoolmate, my college chum, my partner, my friend, the man I loved. He was on his knees. His agonised face was turned to his wife. His clasped hands had been raised in an awful, heart-crushing prayer as his Maker touched the bell. Bob Brownley’s great brown eyes were closed, his clasped hands had dropped against his wife’s head, and in dropping had unloosed the glorious golden-brown waves until in fond abandon they had coiled around his arms and brow as though she for whom he had sacrificed all was shielding his beloved head from the chills and dark mists of the black river that laps the brink of the eternal rest. The “System” had skewered Robert Brownley’s heart too. I staggered to his side. As I touched his now fast-icing brow my eyes fell upon the great black headlines spread across the top of the paper that Beulah Sands had been reading when the all-kind God had cut her bonds:
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH
And beneath in one column:
TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN VIRGINIA
THE RICHEST MAN IN THE STATE, THOMAS REINHART, MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, WHILE TEMPORARILY INSANE FROM THE LOSS OF HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER, AND OF HIS ENORMOUS FORTUNE, WHICH WAS SHATTERED IN TO-DAY’S AWFUL PANIC, CUT HIS THROAT. HIS DEATH WAS INSTANTANEOUS.
In another column:
ROBERT BROWNLEY CREATES THE MOST AWFUL PANIC IN HISTORY, AND SPREADS WRECK AND RUIN THROUGHOUT THE CIVILISED WORLD.
* * * * *
Publisher’s Note
_The following are fac-similes of a few of the letters received by the author during the serial publication of “Friday, the Thirteenth.”_
RESIDENCE OF THE PAULIST FATHERS 2158 PINE STREET
San Francisco, CA 21 October 1906
My Dear Mr. Dawson
Kindly allow one of your countless admirers to express his extreme gratification with the announcement that you will add fiction to your distinguished literary achievements. Your gifts as a writer are so wonderful and fascinating that I look forward eagerly to your work in this new field—and I pray God to prosper you in all good.
Sincerely, John Marus Haudly
70 Kirkland St., Cambridge Dec. 26, 1906.
Mr. T. W. Lawson, Boston, Mass.
My Dear Sir: Allow me to congratulate you on your last move and on your story, “Friday, the Thirteenth”.
It is the best yet, not merely as a story but as an eye opener. I can begin to see daylight in spots, where it looks like a remedy and a real one. I can’t see how you will work it; but I think I do get a hint, and it holds me tightly.
That story ought to be issued in a cheap (25¢) edition in paper, and every man in American ought to read it. The third part is yet to come; but, if I mistake not, it will make us all say “Hurrah!” In this form the facts go home. They were too abstract before. Now they live and palpitate. Sincerely yours,
[Illegible: H. W. Majorson]
Dowagiac, Mich., Dec 26, 1906.
Mr. T. Lawson, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir—
I have just finished reading your second installment of “Friday the 13th.” It is one of the greatest stories I ever read. Your previous articles are good, but this is a wonder. I believe you are sincere and cannot help admiring your wonderful courage + grit in going up against big odds. I have no axe to grind with you, simply think that no matter how big you may be you like to know that what you write is appreciated by the majority of good american citizens. So Here’s to you Mr Lawson + I back you to eventually win. Smash ’em good.
Yours Truly A. J. Hill.
Grinnell, Iowa, Nov. 3 1906
Thomas Lawson Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir,
What did “Bob” hear when he picked up the receiver. Impossible to wait one month to find out.
Yours truly, A. W. Talbott
103 Stedman Street Brookline Mass.
Dear Mr. Lawson:—
I have hit just read the first instalment of your serial “Friday the 13th.”
I was so interested, aroused and stirred, I felt I must express to you some of the appreciation I feel for the work you have done and are doing.
The army of those who suffer is so great the human spoilers so strong; that one’s heart goes out in gratitude to a champion who comes around and able willing to do better for the oppressed.
Would it be an intrusion to extend sympathy to one bereft of the beautiful gift of loving companionship? I hope that it is sincerely felt.
Many admire and rejoice in your work—may it go forward bringing the knowledge which is power to ever increasing numbers of American people.
Most Sincerely Marion E. Major
December 14th, 1906
L. GUY DENNETT ATTORNEY AT LAW 48 TREMONT ST., BOSTON TELEPHONE CONNECTION
Nov. 21/06
Thomas W. Lawson Esq. Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir,
I take it for granted that you want to know how the “Public” is going to take to your latest writing “fiction” and how are you to know unless your unknown friends write you?
I have read every thing you have ever written because I believe in you and admire the work you have done and are doing and allow me to say that I finaly believe that you will one day be recognized as one of the greatest story writers of the age. The first section of “Friday the Thirteenth” has convinced me that you will be a sure winner.
Yours very truly, L. Guy Dennett
Angola Tulare Co. Cal. Dec. 29, 1906
W. T. Lawson,
Dear Sir,
I wanted to thank you for the first number of “Friday the 13th”, but did not know your address. “Everybody’s” contains some letters written you to Boston so hope this may reach its destination.
I live in the wildest of the wooley west + such a god send as in “Everybody’s” (sent me by a sister in Oakland Cal.) + containing the first number of your story, words inadequately suffices. Friday the 13th made an impression on me which I could not easily shake off if I would. I was so sorry it ended where it did that I wanted to cry out + could hardly wait for the Jan. number. Yesterday I bought one in Hanford Cal. rode 30 miles north to get it. I live a mile from the recently filled in basin of old Tulare Lake. The snowfall on the mountains argue that our part of the Wild + Wooley may soon be a fishing station instead of an alfalfa ranch.
Perhaps you don’t understand how much your story is appreciated.
You are Bob Brownley, _I know_. Can you really _feel_ what you write as you make us do? Your characters appeal to me so that I live with them, every nerve alert to the straining point (but with pleasure). You are certianly the idol of the American people. I’ve heard you discussed by rich + poor, monopolist + antimonopolist during the publication of “Frenzied Finance” + the worst a monopolist could say was that you were as bad as the Standard Oil, but wanted to get even. “What is that but a virtue,” exclaimed I. “Couldn’t he have made millions by staying in, but _he_ recognized his past failings and exposed [them] S.O. to uphold a nation. May honor attend him. Isn’t that being a man and a gentleman?”
People read “Frenzied Finance” to a man + would loan the magazine one to another so those who felt the 15¢ impossible could get the good of your revelations.
I’m glad you believe in sentiment—the heart-lasting sentiment (instead of dollars and desire) which I feared was becoming a thing of the past; There are still splendid men in America. God bless them.
O happy New Year may the weight of your pen sway millions. Amen.
Respectfully, Louise D. Tennent
See 14 Kings
Angola P.O. Ca.
Spokane, Wash., December 28. 1906.
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:
I have lived nine years in Anaconda, Montana, and therefore become somewhat familiar with amalgamated copper, etc. I want to say I have followed your writings with lively interest and have sworn by all the statements you have made. It is, therefore, with the greatest regret that I am compelled to state that my faith in you has been shattered.
When you state in your story of “Friday the 13th” that the heroine walked in to an office in New York in the middle of July with a feather turban on her head I simply cannot swallow it. That a lady of refinement and good taste with $30,000 in the bank, and anxious to make a good appearance, should walk into an office in New York with a winter hat taxes my credulity to the breaking point. However, be that as it may, I want to say that you have made a big fight against great odds and that I admire your pluck and genius, and I hope you will keep right on fighting for the right.
By the way, I might as well admit that it was my wife by the way is a superior woman who called my attention to the turban when I was reading your story aloud to her. I am,
Very truly yours, John Ortson
O’Fallon, Ill. Nov. 22nd, 1906
Thos W. Lawson Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir,
It has afforded me great pleasure to just have finished your first installment to “Friday the 13th,” as have also your previous writings, from which I learned a great deal,—although from a financial standpoint, following what I thought to be your advice, I am several thousand dollars looser,—and I take this means of contributing my mite of encouragement, firmly believing that your work is doing a great good, and trusting that success on the lines you have mapped out, will be your reward.
Very respectfully, Wm. A. Staney.
(I’m awaiting your next installment)
Dear sir:
I have only had the pleasure of meeting you once—in your private car, with Thayer, when you were returning from your western trip—but I hope you will not consider me presuming if I take a moment of your valuable time to thank you for your masterpiece just begun in Everybody’s.
Such magic has not flowed from a pen for many a year.
Yours Truly John O Powers
206 North 34th Street Philadelphia
Des Moines, Iowa, 11/20, 1906
Mr. Thos. Lawson Boston.
Dear Sir,
I like your story “Friday the Thirteenth.” For the information and added knowledge your previous writing has given me I thank you.
—“for the crow that is in him and the spurs that are on him to back up the crow with.” You certainly are a game and competant old fighter.
Sincerely, with best wishes [Illegible signature: A. S. Goodman]
St. Paul, Minn., November 26, 1906.
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:
I wish to congratulate you on the good story you wrote in Everybody’s Magazine this month. It is the beat story I ever read and the best I ever saw published in any magazine.
I am well posted on the “Brokers” business and enjoyed your story very much. I hope you will continue to write them. I know they are taken more from real life than immagination. I am sure they will be appreciated as much as “Frenzied Finance”. I have taken the liberty to send a good word to Ridgway’s.
With best wishes, I remain Yours respectfully,
Western Union Telegraph Co. R.A. Kelly
Los Angeles, Calif., December 11, 1906.
Mr. Thomas W. Lawson, Boston, Mass.
My dear Sir:
It was indeed a pleasure to read your novel in this month’s Everybody’s. Being an old trader myself, I have appreciated every word of it and look forward for the continuation with much interest.
I just want to say this too—that anyone who says that you cannot write anything else but “Street” gossip had better cover his “shorts”.
Wishing you all kinds of success, and with congratulations on your splendid work, I am
Very sincerely,
Nancy Brown 214 Citizens Nat’l Bank Bldg.
Washington, D.C., December 1, 1906.
Thos. W. Lawson, Esq., Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:
I have just read with very great pleasure and edification the first installment of your excellent story “Friday the 13th”. It is so far a masterpiece.
Congratulating you. I remain Very truly, M. H. Ramaze
Cleburn, Texas, Dec 3 1906
Mr. Thos. W. Lawson Boston
Dear Sirs:
I have just your first installment of “Friday 13th.” It is OK + if the balance of the story is as good (+ I have no doubts on that score) you are “It” when it comes to writting fiction as well as tricking the Insurance Thief + Standard Oil Grafters.
Wishing you success I am yours very truly S. F. Welch
Rumford Falls, Maine, November 20, 1906.
Mr. Tom Lewson, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:
I have read all your writings in Everybody’s, including the first installment of your story in the December number, and I must say that I am more than pleased with it. As a writer of fiction you are sure to make another big hit.
Yours truly, W. I. White.
Footnotes
[1] “26 Broadway” is the Wall Street figure of speech for “Standard Oil,” which has its home there.
[2] Those who seek to depress the price of a stock are known as bears, and those who oppose them by trying to raise the price are bulls.