For years the man had loomed4 large in the public eye. He was between fifty and sixty, small, wiry, made of iron and steel with a nerve nothing could shake. Like so many of our big capitalists, he had begun life in the mining camps of the far Northwest, had never married, and had kept his doors shut on the world that tried to force his seclusion5. Among his rivals he was famed for his daring, his ruthless courage and his almost uncanny foresight6. He was a financial genius, the making of money, his life. But as one coup7 after another jostled the Street, the wiseacres wagged their heads and said "Some day!" It looked now as if the day had come. But that such a man had double-crossed his associates and cleaned them out of twenty millions seemed incredible.
It was especially hard to believe—for us I mean—as on the morning of January 15 he had been in the Whitney offices conferring with the chief on business. His manner was as cool and non-committal as usual, his head full of plans that stretched out into the future. Nothing in his words or actions suggested the gambler concentrated on his last and most tremendous coup. Only as he left he made a remark, that afterward8 struck us as significant. It was in answer to a query9 of the chief's about the Copper10 Pool:
"There are developments ahead—maybe sensational11. You'll see in a day or two."
It was the second day after the suicide and in the afternoon, having a job to see to on the upper West Side, I decided12 to drop in on Molly Babbitts and have a word with her. I always drop in on Molly when I happen to be round her diggings. Three years ago, after the calamity13 which pretty nearly put a quietus on me for all time, Molly and I clasped hands on a friendship pact14 that, God willing, will last till the grass is growing over both of us. She's the brightest, biggest-hearted, bravest little being that walks, and once did me a good turn. But I needn't speak of that—it's a page I don't like to turn back. It's enough to say that whatever Molly asks me is done and always will be as long as I've breath in my body.
As I swung up the long reach of Central Park West—she's a few blocks in from there on Ninety-fifth Street—my thoughts, circling round the Harland affair, brought up on Miss Whitehall, whose offices are just below those of the dead man. I wondered if she'd been there and hoped she hadn't, a nasty business for a woman to see. I'd met her several times—before she started the Azalea Woods Estates scheme—at the house of a friend near Longwood and been a good deal impressed as any man would. She was one of the handsomest women I'd ever seen, dark and tall, twenty-five or -six years of age and a lady to her finger tips. I was just laying round in my head for an excuse to call on her when the villa15 site business loomed up and she and her mother whisked away to town. That was the last I saw of them, and my fell design of calling never came off—what was decent civility in the country, in the town looked like butting16 in. Bashful? Oh, probably. Maybe I'd have been bolder if she'd been less good-looking.
Molly was at home, and had to give me tea, and here were Soapy's cigars and there were Soapy's cigarettes. Blessed little jolly soul, she welcomes you as if you were Admiral Dewey returning from Manila Bay. Himself was at the Harland inquest and maybe he and the boys would be in, as the inquest was to be held at Harland's house on Riverside Drive. So as we chatted she made ready for them—on the chance. That's Molly too.
As she ran in and out of the kitchen she told me of a visit she'd paid the day before to Miss Whitehall's office and let drop a fact that gave me pause. While she was there a man had come with a note from some bank which, from her description, seemed to be protested. That was a surprise, but what was a greater was that Harland had been the endorsee17. Out Longwood way there'd been a good deal of speculation18 as to how the Whitehalls had financed so pretentious19 a scheme. Men I knew there were of the opinion there had been a silent partner. If it was Harland—who had a finger in many pies—the enterprise was doomed20. I sat back puffing21 one of Babbitts' cigars and pondering. Why the devil hadn't I called? If it was true, I might have been of some help to them.
Before I had time to question her further, the hall door opened and Babbitts came in with a trail of three reporters at his heels. I knew them all—Freddy Jaspar, of the Sentinel, who three years ago had tried to fix the Hesketh murder on me and had taken twelve months to get over the agony of meeting me, Jones, of the Clarion22, and Bill Yerrington, star reporter of a paper which, when it couldn't get its headlines big enough without crowding out the news, printed them in blood red.
They had come from the inquest and clamored for food and drink, crowding round the table and keeping Molly, for all her preparations, swinging like a pendulum23 between the kitchen and the dining-room. I was keen to hear what had happened, and as she whisked in with Jaspar's tea and Babbitts' coffee, a beer for Yerrington and the whiskey for Jones, they began on it.
There'd been a bunch of witnesses—the janitor24, the elevator boy, Harland's stenographer25 who'd had hysterics, and Jerome, his head clerk, who'd identified the body and had revealed an odd fact not noticed at the time. The front hall window of the eighteenth story—the window Harland was supposed to have jumped from—had been closed when Jerome ran into the hall.
"Jerome's positive he opened it," said Babbitts. "He said he remembered jerking it up and leaning out to look at the crowd on the street."
"How do they account for that?" I asked. "Harland couldn't have stood on the sill and shut it behind him."
Jaspar explained:
"No—It wasn't that window. He went to the floor below, the seventeenth. The janitor, going up there an hour afterward, found the hall window on the seventeenth floor wide open."
"That's an odd thing," I said—"going down one story."
"You can't apply the ordinary rules of behavior to men in Harland's state," said Jones. "They're way off the normal. I remember one of my first details was the suicide of a woman, who killed herself by swallowing a key when she had a gun handy. They get wild and act wild."
Yerrington, who was famous for injecting a sinister26 note into the most commonplace happenings, spoke27 up:
"The window's easily explained. What is queer is the length of time that elapsed between his leaving the office and his fall to the street. That Franks girl, when she wasn't whooping28 like a siren in a fog, said it was 6.05 when he went out. At twenty-five to seven the body fell—half an hour later." He looked at me with a dark glance. "What did he do during that time?"
"I'll tell you in two words," said Jaspar. "Stop and think for a moment. What was that man's mental state? He's ruined—he's played a big game and lost. But life's been sweet to him—up till now it's given him everything he asked for. There's a struggle between the knowledge that death is the best way out and the desire to live."
"To express it in language more suited to our simple intellects," said Jones, "he's taken half an hour to make up his mind."
"Where did he spend that half hour?" said Yerrington, in a deep, meaningful voice.
"Hi, you Yerrington," cried Babbitts, "this isn't a case for posing as Burns on the Trail. What's the matter with him spending it in the seventeenth floor hall?"
Molly, who was sitting at the head of the table in a mess of cups and steaming pots, colored the picture.
"Strange," said Yerrington, looking somberly at the droplight, "that no one saw him pacing there."
"A great deal stranger if they had," cut in Jones, "considering there was no one there to see. It was after six—the offices were empty."
They had the laugh on Yerrington who muttered balefully, dipping into his glass.
"It fits in with the character of Harland," I said, "the stuff in the papers, all you hear about him. He was an intellect first—cool, resolute31, hard as a stone. That kind of man doesn't act on impulse. As Mrs. Babbitts says, he probably paced up and down the empty corridor with his vision ranging over the situation, arguing it out with himself and deciding death was the best way. Then up with the window and out."
"Do you suppose Mr. Barker had any idea he was going to do it when he left?" Molly asked.
Babbitts laughed.
"Ask us an easier one, Molly."
"I guess Barker wasn't bothering much about anybody just then. His own get-away was occupying his thoughts."
"You're confident he's lit out?" said Jones.
"What else? Why, if he wasn't lying low in that back room, didn't he come out when he heard Miss Franks' screams? Why hasn't he showed up since? Where is he? That idea they've got in his office that he may have had aphasia33 or been kidnapped is all tommyrot. They've got to say something and they say that. The time was ripe for his disappearance34 and things worked out right for him to make it then and there. If he didn't slip out while Miss Franks and Jerome were at the hall window, he did it after they'd gone down. It was nearly an hour before the police went up. He could have taken his time, quietly descended35 the side stairs and picked up his auto36 which was waiting in some place he'd designated."
"That's the dope," said Babbitts. "And it won't be many more 'sleeps,' as the Indians say, before that car is run to earth. You can't hide a man and a French limousine37 for long."
He was right. Johnston Barker's car was located the next day and the public knew that the head of the Copper Pool had disappeared by design and intention. His clerks and friends who had desperately38 suggested loss of memory, kidnapping, accident, were silenced. Their protesting voices died before evidence that was conclusive39. Judge for yourself.
On the morning of January the eighteenth, Heney, the chauffeur40, turned up in the Newark court, telling a story that bore the stamp of truth. At five o'clock on the day of the suicide he had received a phone message in the garage from Barker. This message instructed him to take the limousine that evening at 8.15 to the corner of Twenty-second Street and Ninth Avenue. There he was to wait for his employer, but not in any ordinary way. The directions were explicit41 and, in the light of subsequent events, illuminating42. He was not to stop but to move about the locality, watching for Barker. When he saw him he was to run along the curb43, slowing down sufficiently44 for the older man to enter the car.
From there he was to proceed to the Jersey45 Ferry, cross and continue on to Elizabeth. The objective point in Elizabeth was the railway depot46, but instead of going straight to it, the car was to stop at the foot of the embankment on the Pennsylvania side, where Barker would alight. Further instructions were that Heney was to mention the matter to no one, and if asked on the following day of Barker's whereabouts, deny all knowledge of it. Pay for his discretion47 was promised.
Heney said he was astonished, as he had been in Barker's employment two years and never piloted the magnate on any such mysterious enterprise. But he did what he was told, sure of his money and trusting in his boss. At the corner of the two streets he saw no one, looped the block, and on his return made out a figure moving toward him that slowed up as he came in sight. He ran closer and by the light of a lamp recognized Barker; and skirted the curb as he'd been ordered. With a nod and glance at him, Barker opened the car door and entered.
The run to Elizabeth was made without incident. Heney stopped the car at the Pennsylvania side of the culvert, above which the station lights shone. Barker alighted and with a short "Good night" mounted the steps to the depot.
On the way home, going at high speed, Heney, rounding a corner, ran into a wagon48 and found himself face to face with a pair of angry farmers. They haled him before a magistrate49 to whom he gave a false name, representing himself as a chauffeur joy-riding in a borrowed car. He told this lie hoping to be able to hush50 the matter up the next day.
When he read of his boss' disappearance in the papers he was uneasy, knowing discovery could not be long postponed51. The number of the car—overlooked in the rush of bigger matters—was made public in the evening papers of the seventeenth. Then he knew the game was up, admitted his deception52 and the identity of his employer.
Inquiries53 at the Elizabeth depot confirmed his story. The Jersey Central and Pennsylvania tracks run side by side through the station. At nine-thirty on the night of January fifteenth the ticket agent of the Pennsylvania Line remembered selling a Philadelphia ticket to a man answering the description of Barker. He did not see this man board the train, being busy at the time in his office. None of the train officials had any recollection of such a passenger, but as the coaches were full, the coming and going of people continuous, he might easily have been overlooked.
After this there was no more doubt as to Barker's flight. The papers announced it to an amazed public, shaken to its core by the downfall of one of its financial giants. The collapse54 of the Copper Pool was complete and Wall Street rocked in the last throes of panic. From the wreckage55 the voices of victims called down curses on the traitor56, the man who had planned the ruin of his associates and got away with it.
They congregated57 in the Whitney office where the air was sulphurous with their fury. And from the Whitney office the Whitney detectives, Jerry O'Mally at their head, slipped away to Philadelphia, with their noses to the trail. With his picture on the front page of every paper in the country it would be hard for Barker to elude58 them, but he had three days' start, and, as O'Mally summed it up, "It has only taken seven to make the world."
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1
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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3
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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4
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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5
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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7
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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8
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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12
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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14
pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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15
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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16
butting
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| 用头撞人（犯规动作） | |
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17
endorsee
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| n.被背书人 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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clarion
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| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
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pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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stenographer
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| n.速记员 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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28
whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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29
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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30
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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31
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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32
musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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33
aphasia
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| n.失语症 | |
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34
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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35
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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36
auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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37
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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38
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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39
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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41
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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42
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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43
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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45
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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46
depot
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| n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站 | |
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47
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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48
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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49
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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50
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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51
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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52
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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53
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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54
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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55
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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56
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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57
congregated
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
elude
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| v.躲避，困惑 | |
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