CHAPTER VIII

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Sec.1. Ex-Judge Marcus Stein had mastered, in common with most truly dignified men, the art of acting quickly without hurrying. Upon leaving Luke's apartments, he exercised this art.

His motor-car was waiting for him at the door. He climbed into it with a judicial deliberation and gave his order to the chauffeur. The car started noiselessly. By proceeding with an even speed that avoided blind dashes into the back-waters of the traffic-stream, it made better time than its more impetuous peers and, without jolt or pause, bore its occupant quickly to the building in which the firm of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry had their offices.

As Judge Stein passed through the outer room of the suite, he spoke to the girl who was seated at the firm's telephone switchboard:

"Good-afternoon, Miss Weston."

The girl's neurasthenic face lighted with pleasure: Marcus Stein was liked and respected by his office-force.

"Good-afternoon, Judge Stein," she said.

"I think," said the Judge, "that you might see if you can get Mr. Hallett on his private wire, and connect him with my telephone. Will you, please?"

Miss Weston always felt that the Judge conferred a favor when he asked one. Consequently, she made a practice of giving his calls precedence over those of anybody else connected with the firm.

"Right away," she said. "And if he's left his office, shall I try his house or his club?"

"Both, please, Miss Weston. But I have an idea that he will be at his office."

The Judge passed on to his own handsome room overlooking the turmoil of lower Broadway. He had scarcely reached his desk, and was just bending to smell of the two Abel Chatney roses that stood in a vase there, when the soft bell of his telephone tinkled.

"Stein?" asked Hallett's voice through the black receiver that the Judge placed to his ear.

"Yes. This is Mr. Hallett?"

"Yes."

"I was about to telephone you, and I have just been to see our young friend."

"Well--well?"

"It is no use, Mr. Hallett."

Hallett's voice was incredulous: "The fool won't give up?"

"Not yet."

"How much does he want?"

"Nothing."

"Well, but didn't you throw the fear of God into him?"

"We can't purchase and we can't coerce--at least not by mere threats."

"Then, we've got to frighten him by something else, Stein. How'd he get those things that he's got?"

"He wouldn't say. I scarcely expected that he would."

"Did you put on the political screws?"

"I put on all, as far as was wise. He is a clever young man, and he knows we can't hurt him so long as he has certain things in his possession."

The situation apparently passed Hallett's comprehension: it was outside of his experience.

"But what does he want? He must want something."

"I'm afraid not," the Judge sighed.

"Hell! Of course, he must. Everybody does."

"If he does, I couldn't find it out."

"Well, then," asked Hallett, "what's he goin' to do?"

"Nothing--for a month."

"You don't think he'll keep his word?"

"I'm sure of it."

"Wait a minute," said Hallett.

The Judge waited fifteen minutes. At the end of that time, Hallett's voice, regretful, but firm, sounded again in the telephone:

"Well," he said, "we've got to get those things he's got. We're all agreed on that. Understand?"

"Yes?"

"Yes--and it's up to you, Judge."

"Have you any course to suggest?"

"No, we haven't, and we don't want to know anything about courses. That's your job."

As if Hallett were in the room, Stein bowed his white head to him.

"Very well," he said, and hung up the receiver.

He bent to the pink roses again, and again inhaled their cultivated fragrance. His face was not perplexed, but it was sad.

"I am sorry," he seemed to be saying. "A nice young man. I am very sorry, indeed."

He returned the telephone-receiver to his ear.

"Miss Weston?"

"Yes, Judge Stein?"

"Thank you for getting that call so promptly. Now, will you please get me Mr. Titus?"

"Mr. William Titus, or Titus & Titherington, the mercantile agency?"

"Mr. Alexander Titus, of Titus & Titherington: the one that I was speaking to before I went out to luncheon."

"Yes, Judge Stein. Just a minute."

There was no long wait before Titus, who owed half of his business as a financial-agent to Stein and Stein's chief employer, was in conversation with the Judge.

"Have you secured that report yet?" asked Stein.

"Which one, Judge?"

"The one I asked you for at lunch-time."

"It's being typed now. I'll send it over as soon as it's finished."

"I wish you would. Meantime, get the chief points from the man that looked into the matter and 'phone them to me."

"All right, Judge."

"Call me up. I have somebody to talk to while I'm waiting."

The Judge rang off and then another time spoke to Miss Weston.

"Is Mr. Irwin in his office?"

Miss Weston said he was.

"Then, please ask him to step in to see me for a moment."

Mr. Irwin was a member of the Judge's firm whose name did not appear upon its letter-heads, although he had been attached to it for more years than Mr. Perry or even the younger Mr. Falconridge. He was a little man with a gray Vandyck beard, pink cheeks, and twinkling blue eyes.

In the fewest possible words, Stein gave him a description of the letters that were in Luke Huber's possession. He did not say who wanted these letters, or why they were wanted, but he left no doubt about the urgency of the commission he was delivering.

"It is rather a difficult assignment," he concluded, "but it must be done. There are great interests at stake."

"I think I can manage it," said Irwin cheerfully.

"I am afraid you will have to manage it," said the Judge.

"I'll simply tell my friend----"

The Judge raised his hand and smiled.

"No details, please," said he.

"Very well," Irwin, still cheerful, agreed.

"All that I need add," said the Judge, "is this: we must take only one step at a time. If we can succeed by persuasion, there is no need to use other measures. I do not want to use other measures unless he forces us to use them. Remember that. The first thing to do is to convince him that we are too strong for him. For instance, he has this reform nomination for the district-attorneyship. If he could be made to see that we could take that nomination away from him, he might listen to reason."

"I see."

"You will report results to me. Not methods, Irwin: only the results, but please report the results step by step. And understand that whoever undertakes this matter must not know too much to be dangerous, but must know enough to make no error."

"How soon do you want the letters, Judge?"

"As soon as I can get them."

"And the outside limit?"

"The first step must be immediate. We must not run so fast that we stumble; but for the completion it will be impossible to wait long. Say twenty-eight days from date."

"Right," said Irwin, and walked briskly from the room.

Irwin had a manner of telephoning that was more hurried than the Judge's, and Miss Weston treated him with greater deliberation. However, he had soon called up the office of Anson Quirk and learned that Quirk was there.

"Then, stay there for twenty minutes, will you?" asked Irwin. "I'm coming right around to see you."

Anson Quirk was a lawyer who had a small office and a large reputation on the East Side. His round, smiling face shone in every important case where was endangered the liberty or life of minor politicians or major thugs; the number of acquittals to his credit was surpassed only by the number of clients whom he had saved from ever appearing in court. He called every patrolman, magistrate, and tipstaff in the City and County of New York by his first name. He was successful before a judge, but he was magnificent before a magistrate, and with a police-officer he was a worker of miracles. In his own world, Quirk, whom Stein would have refused to shake hands with, was what Stein was upon a somewhat higher plane.

He talked with the bright-eyed Irwin for less than half an hour. Then he showed his visitor from his dusty office full of law-books that were never consulted.

"Easy?" he chuckled as he bowed Irwin out. "It's a hundred-to-one shot. I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll----"

"No, you won't tell me," laughed Irwin. "The less I know, the better for me. All I want to be sure of is that I can count on you."

"Sure, you can."

"And don't do everything at once."

"Not me. The frame-up comes first."

"Let me know as soon as it's tried. Then we'll talk about the next move--if one's needed."

"I understand. And whatever's needed, I'll deliver the goods inside of three weeks."

Irwin said he hoped nothing more would be needed and that a few days would suffice, and Quirk, screwing a derby-hat on one side of his head, walked around the corner to the police-station to see his friend, the red-faced, genial Hugh Donovan, lieutenant of police.

Sec.2. Ex-Judge Stein, in the handsome room overlooking Broadway, had been having another telephone-conversation with the head of the Titus & Titherington Mercantile Agency while Mr. Irwin was consulting with Mr. Quirk.

"That man has saved a bit," Alexander Titus was reporting; "but outside of his salary he has really only a hundred thousand dollars, and it's all invested in the R. H. Forbes & Son clothing firm over in Brooklyn."

The Judge made a note of this on a desk-pad.

"I see," he said. "Who is the head of that firm, now?"

"Wallace K. Forbes; I think he's a grandson of old R. H."

The Judge made another note.

"How do they stand? Oddly enough, I have a client interested in their affairs, too."

"The Forbes people? Pretty well. I had to get a report on them last week."

"Have they any heavy loans?"

"Only one that might hurt them: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at call with the East County National."

The Judge's pencil was still busy.

"I want to be quite clear about this," he said--"quite clear: my client in this Forbes matter is considering an investment. Am I to understand that if the East County National should call this loan, if it could not be renewed elsewhere, the firm would become insolvent?"

"Oh, there's no doubt about that. But then, there's no doubt about its not being called, either. The company's quite sound, Judge."

"Thank you," said Stein. "You will have that other full report sent over?"

"It's on its way now."

"Thank you again. You had better follow it with a copy of the Forbes report. If that bears out all you say, I shall instruct my client to go ahead."

"He'll be safe if he does, Judge."

"Very well. Good-afternoon," said Stein.

He called Miss Weston again.

"Miss Weston," he said, "please get me City Chamberlain Kilgour, and, while I am speaking to him, call up the East County National and ask where you can find president Osserman. He will have left the bank, but I should like to reach him before I go home to-day."

Miss Weston obeyed with her usual readiness to serve this one of her employers.

Sec.3. Police Lieutenant Donovan had not listened to half a dozen of Quirk's words before he rose quickly and closed the door of his private room. His was one of those voices that cannot whisper, but it descended now to a hoarse muttering.

"How much is there in this for me?" he demanded.

"Nothin'," grinned Quirk.

Donovan's broad palm banged the table at which he sat.

"Then good-_night_," said he.

Quirk was undisturbed.

"Could you do the trick?" he inquired.

"You mean if it was worth my while?"

"I mean what I say: could you do it?"

"Could I do it? Of course, I could. It'd be like takin' pennies from a blind man."

"Then," said Quirk, rattling some coins in a pocket beneath his round abdomen, "I guess you'd better get busy."

Donovan's eyes narrowed.

"What's your game, Quirk?" he asked.

"It's not _my_ game, Hughie," smiled the lawyer.

"Well, you're not in it for your health, I know that damn well. If it ain't your game, whose is it?"

"I don't know for sure," said Quirk.

"Oh, come on. You know me: you've got to cough up if you want me to help."

Quirk did know the police-lieutenant. He had expected all along to be forced into an admission; but he was aware that by letting Donovan suspect reluctance he could the more speedily gain his point.

"Well," he said, "it didn't come to me straight, but I'll tell you how it did."

He embarked upon a narrative brief and abounding in gaps that Donovan's imagination was not, however, slow to fill as Quirk intended it should.

The officer nodded comprehendingly. "Then who's at the back of it?" he asked.

Quirk walked quietly to the door. He opened it suddenly: nobody had been listening at the keyhole; so he turned to Donovan and said a certain name.

The police-lieutenant's red face grew redder. He opened and shut his mouth twice before he spoke.

"Again?" he muttered.

Quirk nodded.

"That's all I know about it," he said.

"Well, why in hell didn't you tell me this right off at first?" asked the querulous Donovan.

"Because I didn't think I'd have to," pleaded Quirk.

"Have to? Looks to me like the have-to business all came on to me! How long've I got to put this across?"

Quirk appeared to consider.

"You'd have to begin with the first thing right away," he said, "and let me know about that. If it didn't work, I'd get my party to give me fuller instructions, and then I guess you'd have eighteen days."

"I'm gettin' sick of the whole game," said Donovan.

"So am I," said the lawyer blithely. "But what are we going to do about it? We've got to make a living, don't we?"

"I ain't so sure of that."

"Anyhow, we've got to buy shoes for our kids, Hughie."

"Oh, come on," muttered Donovan, "let's talk business."

They talked business until Quirk remembered another appointment and had to leave. When the lawyer had gone, Donovan put his head into the large room next his own and called to a sleepy officer seated at a desk.

"Anderson," he asked, "where's Patrolman Guth?"

Anderson yawned.

"Just come in, Lieutenant," he vouchsafed: "him and Mitchell. He's in the locker-room."

"Send him in here."

Donovan closed the door and sat at his table, frowning at its surface, until Guth entered.

"Hello, Bill," said the Lieutenant.

Guth was as big as the Lieutenant and more powerful. He would have been handsome, but his mouth had been torn in some obscure street-fight, and the scar from this wound carried the line of his lips to the left corner of his jaw-bone.

"_How're_ you, Lieutenant?" he replied.

Donovan resumed his study of the table.

"What's Reddy Rawn doin' these days?" he presently continued.

Guth shifted his weight from one leg to the other. As much as that scar would permit, he smiled, the right corner of his mouth shooting upward and the left turning down.

"Well," he said, "you know how it is. I warned him he'd got to keep in the quiet ever since that night him and the Kid shot-up Crab Rotello for tryin' to steal Reddy's girl."

"Rotello's still in Bellevue, ain't he?"

"Won't be out for near a month yet."

"He hasn't squealed?"

"Naw. You know these here guys: wouldn't tell if they was dyin'--rather leave it to their own gang to square things. Crab'll wait till he gets well, an' then he'll fix Reddy's feet for himself."

"Still, you told Reddy what I said you should?"

"Tol' him we was on."

"Find him to-night."

"All right, Lieutenant."

"Tell him Rotello's squealed: he'll believe it because he hates him. Tell him the Dago's goin' to croak an's give me an ante-mortem statement--see?"

The patrolman stolidly bowed assent.

"Tell him the only way for him to square me's to do me a good turn," continued Donovan.

Guth nodded again.

"Same's we worked on the Crab himself ten or twelve weeks ago," he said. "I got you."

"That's it. Remember, I don't know much, an' you know a lot less, an' this guy's got to know less than you do. He's got to pull it off inside of two weeks. Now, sit down here, an' I'll tell you what he's got to do. There maybe'll be more later, but this is the start."

Sec.4. The last talk that Judge Stein had that day was one with a brisk, bald-headed man, whose close-cropped mustache only accentuated the heavy mouth below it. This man called in person at the offices of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry; he seemed to have come in a hurry, and he handed Miss Weston a card bearing the legend:

+-----------------------------+ | B. FRANK OSSERMAN | | *PRESIDENT* | | EAST COUNTY NATIONAL BANK | +-----------------------------+

With him the Judge began by being as deliberate as he had been with Luke Huber. He mentioned the names of the three men upon whom Huber had that morning paid so unusual a visit to Wall Street; but this time Stein frankly declared that these three men empowered him to speak.

At the mention of their names, Osserman's fingers played with a thin gold watch-chain that ran taut through a buttonhole of his waistcoat, from one pocket to another.

"I dare say that you will remember," pursued the Judge, "that I have acted with you for these gentlemen on one or two previous occasions."

Osserman cleared his throat. "I hope there is no trouble," he said.

"No. Oh, no; there need be no trouble," said the Judge. Then he sat and watched Osserman move uneasily in his chair.

The bank-president by saying nothing tried to force Stein to explain; Stein, by the same means, tried to force Osserman to make a confession of weakness. At last Stein won.

"Of course," said Osserman, "I know the favors they've done us."

"Exactly," said the Judge; but he said only that.

"And so," continued Osserman, as one who cannot turn back, "our bank will be glad to do anything we can for them." He paused and looked at Stein; but Stein only looked pityingly at him. "Indeed," the banker ruefully resumed, "their connection with our investments and securities is such that we would have to."

"Exactly," repeated the Judge, bending his face toward the pink roses at his elbow. But he was a little sorry for Osserman, and so he added: "Not that the East County is in a position very different, in that respect, from most of the other banks."

Osserman took a deep breath.

"Well," he said, "what is it?"

"You are carrying," said the Judge, "a call-loan at two hundred and fifty thousand to R. H. Forbes & Son."

The banker showed his relief. It was clear that he had expected something more important.

"Are we?" he asked. "I dare say we are."

"Mr. Osserman," said the Judge, "the finances of the R. H. Forbes company are not long going to be what they should be. In the interest of your depositors, I should advise you to stand ready to call that loan when I give you the word."

The banker looked at the Judge and knew that, before this loan would be called, the Judge's clients would see to it that no other bank would take it up. That, however, was no affair of Osserman's: he considered that he was escaping by means of a small service.

"If there's any danger of the Forbes people failing," he said, "it would be only good business to do as you say."

"Yes," the Judge assented. "The fact of the matter is this, Mr. Osserman: that young man named Huber, who has been backing Leighton, is leaving Leighton and will be the candidate for the reform people to succeed him."

"I saw something about it in the afternoon papers."

"Yes. Now, my clients have no objection to those reformers; we see that they may do a great deal of good, if they put a temperate man at the head of their ticket. But we happen to know that this Huber is a young, hot-headed demagogue. He is the kind of man that attracts the crowd. He might be elected. If he was not, he would hurt credit by his wild speeches; if he was, he would undoubtedly upset it by trying to put his impossible promises into action. The safest thing for Business is to take the nomination away from him before he gets started: then nobody is hurt. What money he has (it is not much) is invested in this Forbes concern. My advice to you is to see Mr. Forbes to-morrow; make him appreciate how your bank feels about the unsettling nature of this candidacy, and tell him that you will have to call his loan if the candidacy continues."

Sec.5. That was a busy night for the president and cashier of more than one bank in New York City, and for certain gentlemen whose business it is to negotiate for loans from banks in other cities. Judge Stein's telephonic talk with City Chamberlain Kilgour was as effective as the conversation with president Osserman. It is in the chamberlain's official province to deposit municipal funds with almost whatsoever institution he chooses, and to withdraw such funds as he may elect: the thin, energetic figure of Kilgour, long familiar to the tents of Tammany, was this evening hurrying from private houses to Madison Square Clubs and from clubs to Broadway cafes. The swift, quiet motor-car of ex-Judge Stein was busy, too.

Sec.6. Somebody else was busy: Patrolman Guth. Patrolman Guth, in citizen's garb, was standing almost invisible in the shadowy alley behind a saloon near Forty-third Street and Third Avenue, and was muttering to the darkness. And at last the darkness answered.

"I'm on," said the darkness.

*