Loaded Dice Part 22

Once safely ensconced behind the drawn shades, he thoughtfully removed the blue goggles, and sat silent and preoccupied, until the carriage paused before the most magnificent house on the wholly magnificent avenue, the famous residence of the famous head of the Combine. Just once during the drive did the man with the weak eyes allow himself a thought outside his mission; very slowly he shook his head, and half aloud began to frame a brief sentence, "Of all the d.a.m.ned, cold-blooded--" and there he stopped, for the head of the Combine desired reports, and not comments, even from the man who was, perhaps, in his way, the most trusted little cog in the whole vast machinery of the big Trust's many activities. And so the sentence remained unfinished.

Gordon's second visitor; and the word is used advisedly, was his wife.

For the first time in a week, she invaded the privacy of his study, and stood by his desk, tall and slender and graceful, her neck and arms gleaming with jewels, her opera cloak over her arm, a copy of the evening paper in her hand.

"Well," she said coldly. "Is it as bad as they say?"

Gordon made a little deprecating gesture. "You can read," he answered shortly. "The papers haven't got everything quite right, of course, but it's been bad enough. Yes," he added with emphasis, "the whole affair's been fully as bad as the papers make it out to be."

She nodded, a cold gleam of anger in her eyes. "You've done splendidly, haven't you?" she queried scornfully. "You that were going to make yourself one of the richest men in the country before you got through. You that were going to see that I never lacked for anything I wanted to raise my finger for. You that said you never started out for anything that you didn't get it--"

She gave a scornful little laugh. Gordon, with a humility that sat strangely on him, rose quietly. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "For myself, I don't mind, but I'm sorry for you. I think, though, in time--"

She cut him short. "In time!" she echoed bitterly. "And I've got to give up everything. To be pointed out as the wife of a man who went broke in the stock market. To be laughed at, pitied, patronized; oh, it's too much! I hate you, you fool! I'll tell you the truth now. I hate you! I despise you! I'd be glad--"

With a supreme effort at self-control Gordon clutched the rim of the table with both hands. In a red mist the room swam before his eyes.

Then, all at once, together his vision and his brain suddenly cleared.

He raised his right hand and pointed to the door.

"You'd better go," he said, in a perfectly even tone. "You've gone too far. I'll never own you as my wife again."

She did not flinch. Her eye met his with a pa.s.sion less restrained, but the equal of his own. "No," she blazed, in sudden wrath, "you won't. You never spoke a truer word. Perhaps--"

She stopped abruptly, then silently turned and swept from the room.

It was not until Sunday night that Gordon's third caller came. Doyle, hurrying post-haste from the West, consumed with anxiety, his fears increasing with every bulletin received on the way, burst into Gordon's study, travel-stained and weary, to find his chief sitting calmly in his easy chair, the long table in front of him, usually covered inches deep with papers, cleared bare, with the exception of two sheets, one a letter, one a memorandum covered with minute figures. Gordon nodded pleasantly.

"Well," he said, "glad you're back. You've missed all the excitement.

We've been making history since you left. All sorts, too."

He pushed the letter across the table. Mechanically Doyle took it, and read the few brief lines through. Then he looked up with a gasp.

"Is it true?" he exclaimed. "She's really gone?" Gordon nodded. "Quick work, wasn't it?" he said pleasantly. "She could have had a divorce, if she'd waited; but she was in a hurry, it seems. So they're off on a three years' tour of the world on Ogden's steam yacht. Quite romantic, isn't it?"

Doyle shook his head in mute sympathy. "I'm awfully sorry--" he began, but Gordon, with a strange laugh, cut him short.

"Needn't be," he said. "You don't know the humorous side yet. When you do, you'll laugh, too. It's really funny."

Doyle's face sufficiently showed his bewilderment. Inwardly he wondered whether it was Gordon or himself whose brain was giving way.

After a moment's pause Gordon continued, half, it seemed, as if to himself.

"You're the only man who's ever going to know the inside of this; this--and one other thing. The two are inseparably connected, as they say in books. Well, here's the story. You've heard gossip about my wife and Ogden?"

Doyle nodded reluctantly. Who, indeed, had not?

Gordon nodded in turn. "I supposed so," he said dryly. "And I suppose, further, you've wondered at my inaction. Before this gossip started, I made a deal with Ogden, by which he lent me a very large sum of money to use in engineering a stock deal I'll be coming to in a few moments.

It was demand money, unfortunately, and Ogden, like the thorough gentleman he is, made use of the fact that he knew I needed it, to go on dancing attendance on my wife and getting her name coupled with his, feeling sure that I wouldn't be in a position to act, or even complain. Clever, I think. Don't you?"

Doyle's lip curled. "Clever!" he cried. His tone was enough. Gordon smiled.

"There, there," he said, "don't take me too seriously. I'm never serious, these days. Life's too amusing. Well, now we come to the side-splitting humor. The real reason my wife took French leave, as you've just read in her touching little farewell, is that she couldn't endure life with a poor man. That was the phrase, wasn't it?"

Doyle nodded again. Uneasily he began to think that Gordon, under the strain, was going mad. Yet his chief's tone, when he spoke again, was sane enough, even pleasantly indifferent.

"I'm afraid," he said, "that my poor wife decided too quickly. As far as Ogden is concerned, his wealth has been grossly overestimated.

To-day he isn't worth over three millions, and while it's too long a story to bother you with now, the substance of it is that, thanks to this wild trip of his, I've got the information, I've got the men in my power, and, best of all, I've got the resources to make the man a beggar, so that long before he gets ready to come home, he'll be glad some fine morning to sneak into the poor debtor court and take that means of getting rid of his creditors."

Again Doyle's fears returned. Gordon, himself a hopeless bankrupt, sitting there and stating calmly that he had the resources to put a multimillionaire into bankruptcy. Possibly something of Doyle's thought showed on his expressive face. At all events, Gordon smiled.

"Well," he said. "I mustn't have all the enjoyment. It isn't fair to keep you away from the point so long." He picked up the paper covered with the neat little figuring, and almost lovingly glanced over it once more. Then he handed it across the table to Doyle.

Half a minute pa.s.sed--a minute--two. Then Doyle slowly raised his eyes to Gordon's face, and his expression was that of mute adoration. Once again, as if he could scarcely believe his eyes, he glanced at the eight figures in the lowest row of all, just below the little code cipher known only to himself and to Gordon, which, translated, read, "Deducting amount paid to Combine, as per agreement." Then once again he raised his head. "My G.o.d!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed slowly, and, after a pause, even more slowly and with greater emphasis, "My G.o.d!"

Gordon gazed at him with a slow smile; then, when he spoke, his tone for the first time showed a trace of excitement.

"It is remarkable, isn't it?" he said simply. "And Jim, at that, it's only the first step. I'm through with the market. You're to come with me at a doubled salary, and I'm going to try the biggest game of all.

A year from now I'm going to be elected governor of this state--the first Democratic governor for twenty years--and the year after that--"

He paused, as if confident that Doyle would catch his meaning, but for once the latter's ready brain was fairly staggered by what he had seen.

"The year after that--" he repeated.

Gordon rose, and stood facing him, the l.u.s.t of battle in his eyes.

"The year after that," he said quietly, "is presidential year."

CHAPTER XIV

GORDON ENGAGES A POLITICAL LIEUTENANT

Vanulm dropped into the chair next to Carrington's, reaching for a match as he did so. "Well, Mr. Journalist," he said, "and what's the news today?"

Carrington sighed. Following the campaign through the hot weather was no easy task. "The news to-day," he echoed. "Why, for me the same as it was yesterday, and the same as it will be tomorrow. State politics, morning, noon and night. I've just come from an interview with an old friend of yours."

"Gordon?" queried Vanulm.

Carrington smiled. "How'd you guess it?" he answered. "Yes, they told me to get a column and a half out of him on his chances of election.

He says he's going to win."

The brewer paused a moment before lighting his cigar. "And is he?" he asked.

Carrington's brow wrinkled doubtfully. "Well," he replied at last, "I wouldn't want to be quoted, but between ourselves I really think he's got a good show. It would seem queer enough, too, to have a Democratic governor again after so many years. n.o.body down-town thinks he's even got a show, and yet somehow away down in my heart I think he'll go in.

How do you feel about it?"

Vanulm shook his head. "Why should he?" he answered. "The state's normally Republican, to begin with, of course, and always has been.

Add to this that Endicott's a man of intelligence, and a man of great wealth; that he's essentially a corporation man, and supposed to be hand in glove with the Combine, and how's Gordon going to beat him? I dare say he'll make a creditable showing, but he won't win. I'm sure of that."