Mrs. Raffles Part 4

"Certainly," replied Henriette, "only it will require a little manipulation. For the past six months I have been depositing the moneys I have received in seventeen national banks in Ohio, each account being opened in a different name. The balances in each bank have averaged about three hundred thousand dollars, thanks to a circular system of checks in an endless chain that I have devised. Naturally the size of these accounts has hugely interested the bank officials, and they all regard me as a most desirable customer, and I think I can manage matters so that two or three of them, anyhow, will lend me all the money I want on those bonds and this certificate of trust which I shall ask you to sign."

"Me?" I laughed. "Surely you are joking. What value will my signature have?"

"It will be good as gold after you have deposited that check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your New York bank," said Henriette. "I shall go to the president of the Ohoolihan National Bank at Oshkosh, Ohio, where I have at present three hundred and sixty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and eighteen cents on deposit and tell him that the Hon. John Warrington Bunny, of New York, is my trustee for an estate of thirteen million dollars in funds set apart for me by a famous relative of mine who is not proud of the connection. He will communicate with you and ask you if this is true.

You will respond by sending him a certified copy of the trust certificate, and refer him as to your own responsibility to the New York bank where our two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is on deposit. I will then swap checks with you for three hundred thousand dollars, mine to you going into your New York account and yours to me as trustee going into my account with the Ohoolihan National. The New York bank will naturally speak well of your balance, and the Ohoolihan people, finding the three-hundred-thousand-dollar check good, will never think of questioning your credit. This arranged, we will start in to wash those steel bonds up to the limit."

"That's a very simple little plan of yours, Henriette," said I, "and the first part of it will work easily I have no doubt; but how the deuce are you going to wash those bonds up to fifteen times their value?"

"Easiest thing in the world, Bunny," laughed Henriette. "There will be two million dollars of the bonds before I get through."

"Heavens--no counterfeiting, I hope?" I cried.

"Nothing so vulgar," said Henriette. "Just a little management--that's all. And, by-the-way, Bunny, when you get a chance, please hire twenty safe-deposit boxes for me in as many different trust companies here and in New York--and don't have 'em too near together. That's all for the present."

Three weeks later, having followed out Henriette's instructions to the letter, I received at my New York office a communication from the president of the Ohoolihan National Bank, of Oshkosh, Ohio, inquiring as to the Van Raffles trust fund. I replied with a certified copy of the original which Henriette had already placed in the president's hands. I incidentally referred the inquirer as to my own standing to the Delancy Trust Company, of New York. The three-hundred-thousand-dollar checks were exchanged by Henriette and myself--hers, by-the-way, was on the Seventy-Sixth National Bank, of Brookline, Ma.s.sachusetts, and was signed by a fict.i.tious male name, which shows how carefully she had covered her tracks. Both went through without question, and then the steel bonds came into play. Henriette applied for a loan of one million five hundred thousand dollars, offering the trust certificate for security. The president of the Ohoolihan National wished to see some of her other securities, if she had any, to which Henriette cordially replied that if he would come to New York she would gladly show them to him, and intimated that if the loan went through she wouldn't mind paying the bank a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars for the accommodation. The response was immediate. Mr. Bolivar would come on at once, and he did.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AFTER WHICH HE WILL COME TO NEWPORT'"]

"Now, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles on the morning of his arrival, "all you have to do is to put the one hundred bonds first in the vault of the Amalgamated Trust Company, of West Virginia, on Wall Street. Mr. Bolivar and I will go there and I will show them to him. We will then depart.

Immediately after our departure you will get the bonds and take them to the vaults of the Trans-Missouri and Continental Trust Company, of New Jersey, on Broadway. You will go on foot, we in a hansom, so that you will get there first. I will take Mr. Bolivar in and show him the bonds again. Then you will take them to the vaults of the Riverside Coal Trust Company, of Pennsylvania, on Broad Street, where five minutes later I will show them for the third time to Mr. Bolivar--and so on. We will repeat this operation eighteen times in New York so that our visitor will fancy he has seen one million eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of bonds in all, after which he will come to Newport, where I will show them to him twice more--making a two-million-dollar show-down. See?"

I toppled back into a chair in sheer amazement.

"By Jingo! but you are a wonder," I cried. "If it only works."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MR. BOLIVAR WAS DULY IMPRESSED WITH THE EXTENT OF HENRIETTE'S FORTUNE'"]

It worked. Mr. Bolivar was duly impressed with the extent of Henriette's fortune in tangible a.s.sets, not to mention her evident standing in the community of her residence. He was charmingly entertained and never for an instant guessed when at dinner where Henriette had no less personages than the Rockerbilts, Mrs. Gaster, Mrs. Gus.h.i.+ngton-Andrews, Tommy Dare, and various other social lights to meet him, that the butler who pa.s.sed him his soup and helped him liberally to wine was the Hon. John Warrington Bunny, trustee.

"Well," said Henriette, as she gazed delightedly at the president's certified check for one million four hundred thousand dollars--the amount of the loan less the bonus--"that was the best sport yet. Even aside from the size of the check, Bunny, it was great chasing the old man to cover. What do you think he said to me when he left, the poor, dear old innocent?"

"Give it up--what?"

"He said that I ought to be very careful in my dealings with men, who might impose upon my simplicity," laughed Henriette.

"Simplicity?" I roared. "What ever gave him the idea that you were simple?"

"Oh--I don't know," said Henriette, demurely. "I guess it was because I told him I kept those bonds in twenty safe-deposit vaults instead of in one, to protect myself in case of loss by fire--I didn't want to have too many eggs in one basket."

"H'm!" said I. "What did he say to that?"

Henriette laughed long and loud at the recollection of the aged bank president's reply.

"He squeezed my hand and answered, 'What a child it is, indeed!'" said Henriette.

VI

THE ADVENTURE OF THE FRESH-AIR FUND

It was a bright, sunny morning in the early summer when Henriette, gazing out of the dining-room windows across the lawns adjoining the Rockerbilt place, caught sight of a number of ragam.u.f.fins at play there.

"Who are those little tatterdemalions, Bunny?" she asked, with a suggestion of a frown upon her brow. "They have been playing on the lawns since seven o'clock this morning, and I've lost quite two hours'

sleep because of their chatter."

"They are children from Mrs. Rockerbilt's Fresh-Air Society," I explained, for I, too, had been annoyed by the loud pranks of the youngsters and had made inquiries as to their ident.i.ty. "Every summer, Digby, Mr. de Pelt's valet, tells me, Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a tea for the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund, and she always has a dozen of the children from town for a week beforehand so as to get them in shape for the function."

"Get them in shape for the function, Bunny?" asked Henriette.

"Yes; one of the features of the tea is the presence of the youngsters, and they have to be pretty well rehea.r.s.ed before Mrs. Rockerbilt dares let them loose among her guests," said I, for Digby had explained the scheme in detail to me. "You see, their ideas of fun are rather primitive, and if they were suddenly introduced into polite society without any previous training the results might prove unpleasant."

"Ah!" said Henriette, gazing abstractedly out of the window in the manner of one suddenly seized with an idea.

"Yes," I went on. "You see, the street gamin loves nothing better in the way of diversion than throwing things at somebody, particularly if that somebody is what is known to his vernacular as a Willie-boy. As between eating an over-ripe peach and throwing it at the pot-hat of a Willie-boy, the ragam.u.f.fin would deny even the cravings of his stomach for that tender morsel. It is his delight, too, to heave tin cans, wash-boilers, flat-irons, pies--anything he can lay his hands on--at the automobilly-boys, if I may use the term, of all of which, before he is turned loose in the highest social circles of the land, it is desirable that he shall be cured."

"I see," said Henriette. "And so Mrs. Rockerbilt has them here on a ten days' probation during which time they acquire that degree of savoir-faire and veneer of etiquette which alone makes it possible for her to exhibit them at her tea."

"Precisely," said I. "She lets them sleep in the big box-stalls of her stable where the extra coach-horses were kept before the motor-car craze came in. They receive four square meals a day, are rubbed down and curry-combed before each meal, and are bathed night and morning in violet water until the fateful occasion, after which they are returned to New York cleaner if not wiser children."

"It is a great charity," said Henrietta dreamily. "Does Mrs. Rockerbilt make any charge for admission to these teas--you say they are for the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund?"

"Oh no, indeed," said I. "It is purely a private charity. The youngsters get their ten days in the country, learn good manners, and Newport society has a pleasant afternoon--all at Mrs. Rockerbilt's expense."

"H'm!" said Henriette, pensively. "H'm! I think there is a better method. Ah-- I want you to run down to New York for a few days shortly, Bunny. I have a letter I wish you to mail."

Nothing more was said on the subject until the following Tuesday, when I was despatched to New York with instructions to organize myself into a Winter Fresh-Air Society, to have letter-heads printed, with the names of some of the most prominent ladies in society as patronesses--Henriette had secured permission from Mrs. Gaster, Mrs.

Sloyd-Jinks, Mrs. Rockerbilt, Mrs. Gus.h.i.+ngton-Andrews, Mrs. R. U.

Innitt, the d.u.c.h.ess of Snarleyow, Mrs. Willie K. Van Pelt, and numerous others to use their names in connection with the new enterprise--and to write her a letter asking if she would not interest herself and her friends in the needs of the new society.

"It is quite as important," the letter ran, "that there should be a fund to take the little sufferers of our dreadful winters away from the sleet and snow-burdened streets of the freezing city as it is to give them their summer outing. This society is in great need of twenty-five thousand dollars properly to prosecute its work during the coming winter, and we appeal to you for aid."

Henriette's personal response to this request was a check for ten thousand dollars, which as secretary and treasurer of the fund I acknowledged, and then, of course, returned to her, whereupon her campaign began in earnest. Her own enthusiasm for the project, backed up by her most generous contribution, proved contagious, and inside of two weeks, not counting Henriette's check, we were in possession of over seventeen thousand dollars, one lady going so far as to give us all her bridge winnings for a week.

"And now for the grand coup, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles, when I had returned with the spoil.

"Great Scot!" I cried. "Haven't you got enough?"

"No, Bunny. Not a quarter enough," she replied. "These winter resorts are very expensive places, and while seventeen thousand dollars would do very nicely for running a farm in summer, we shall need quite a hundred thousand to send our beneficiaries to Palm Beach in proper style."

"Phe-e-w!" I whistled, in amazement. "Palm Beach, eh?"

"Yes," said Henriette. "Palm Beach. I have always wanted to go there."