The Carleton Case Part 5

A little impatiently, Farrington raised his head. "We'll see you through," he said. "Good night." And Jack, not disposed to quarrel further with fortune, closed the door behind him.

It was a quarter of ten on the morning following when he entered Turner and Driver's office, advancing to meet the senior partner with the little strip of paper in his outstretched hand. Turner took it eagerly enough, and as he scanned the amount, he nodded, while a wrinkle or two seemed to vanish from his puckered and frowning brow. Then he looked up. "Well, you got it," he said, and Carleton hastened to a.s.sent. "Oh, yes," he returned lightly, "I got it all right. Why, didn't you think I would?"

The broker shrugged his shoulders. "Hard telling anything these days,"

he answered, "but I'll tell you one thing, though; you're mighty lucky to be able to put your hands on it so easy. There'll be more than one poor devil this morning who would pretty near give his soul for a tenth part of what you've got here. It's a bad time for customers, Jack, and I don't mind telling you--" he lowered his voice confidentially--"that it's a bad time for brokers, too. A little piece of paper like this--"

he waved the check gently to and fro--"is a nice comforting sight for a man; between you and me, I wouldn't mind seeing three or four mates to it. Yes, I'm glad to get it all right, on my account, and on yours, too."

Jack nodded. Somehow, entirely without justification, as he well knew, the check had given him a feeling of great stability; at once, on receiving it, he had felt that he had risen in his own self-esteem.

"Yes," he a.s.sented, "I'm glad myself; and you needn't worry about my account, Jim. We'll just leave it this way. Don't treat mine as an ordinary account; don't sell me out, whatever happens. I've friends that'll see me through anything. If things should go lower, and you should need more margin, just let me know, and I'll get it over to you right away. Will that be satisfactory?"

The broker nodded. "Why, yes, Jack," he answered, "knowing the way you're fixed, I guess that'll be all right, though with nine men out of ten, of course I wouldn't consider such a way of doing things. Business is business, and when it comes right down to the fine point, why, it's the cold hard cash that counts, and nothing else; not friends.h.i.+p, or honor, or grat.i.tude, or common decency, even--" both face and voice had hardened as he spoke; it was not his first panic--and then his look met Carleton's fairly and squarely. "But with you, Jack," he continued, "it's different, as I say. Only let's be perfectly sure that we understand each other. I don't believe myself, you know, that things can go much lower; I think the chances are they've steadied for good; but for argument, let's suppose they do. Then, as I understand it, you don't want to have me sell you out at any price, no matter how far they break.

You'll make good any time I ask you to. You give me your word on that?"

Carleton readily enough a.s.sented. "Why, sure," he answered lightly, "of course I do; you needn't worry; I'll make good," and the broker nodded, well pleased.

"One thing less to bother over, then," he said. "You'll excuse me now, Jack, won't you? This is going to be a horrible busy day, anyway, and the Lord send it's nothing worse than that; it wouldn't take much now to raise the very deuce."

As he spoke the _News Despatch_ boy entered, tossing down on the table a half dozen sheets fresh from the press. Turner glanced at them, and handed them over to Carleton, shaking his head as he did so. "London's not feeling gay," he observed, "I call that a pretty ragged opening myself. I don't know what you think of it."

Carleton read and nodded. It seemed as if everything in the half dozen pages made for discouragement. London had opened weak--lamentably weak.

There were rumors of this--rumors of that--sickly, unhealthy mushroom growths of the night. There was talk of failures--suspensions--financial troubles of every kind--even the good name of a great bank was bandied carelessly to and fro. Silently Turner crossed the room, and took his seat at his desk; silently Carleton walked out into the customers' room, and joined the other unfortunates who had come slowly straggling in, and who now stood around the ticker, waiting gloomily and apprehensively for the opening bell to ring.

The tension of the moment was plainly enough to be read in the att.i.tudes and expressions of the members of the little group, not one of whom failed in some manner or other to betray the fact that he was far from possessing his usual poise and calm. Most of them, either consciously or unconsciously, showed their nervousness so plainly and even painfully that it was impossible to misinterpret the anxious glances cast first at the clock, then at the tape, as the moment of the opening drew near.

One or two, indeed, essayed a nonchalance so obviously a.s.sumed as to render even more apparent the emotion it sought to conceal. One young fellow, with hat shoved far back on his head, hair in disorder, and a restless, frightened look in his eyes, glanced at Carleton as he approached.

"How _you_ standing it, Jack?" he queried, with a faint attempt at jocularity. "Bad night to sleep last night, _I_ called it; guess most likely 'twas something in the air."

Another man, he of the toothpick, stout and coa.r.s.e, held forth at some length for the benefit of the rest. "Oh, it was perfectly clear, the whole thing," he was saying, with the air of one to whom all the mysteries and marvels of stock fluctuations are but as matters writ large in print the most plain. "You see Rockman and Sharp and Haverfeller got together on this thing, and then they had a conference with Horgan, and got him to say that he'd keep his hands off, and let things alone; then they had a clear chance, and you can see what they've done with it; oh, they're clever all right; when those fellows get together, it's time to look out; you can't beat 'em."

He spoke with a certain condescending finality, as if he had somehow once and for all fixed the status of the panic. After a moment or two a gray, scholarly looking little man, with gentle, puzzled eyes, addressed him, speaking with an air of timid respect for the stout man's evident knowledge.

"Do you imagine, sir," he asked, "that securities will decline still further in value? If they should, I am afraid that I might find myself seriously involved. I can't seem to understand this whole affair; I was led to believe--"

The big man, charmed with the novelty of having a genuine, voluntary listener, interrupted him at once.

"Oh, you don't have to worry," he said largely, "they might open 'em off a little lower, perhaps, but they'll go back again. Don't you fret; the country's all right; they'll come back; they always do."

The little man seemed vastly comforted. "I'm very glad to hear you say so," he answered. "It would come very hard--I had no idea the risk was so great--I was led to believe--"

The young man with the rumpled hair turned a trifle disgustedly to Carleton. "Heard from London?" he asked abruptly. His brief, and not wholly unintelligent connection with the game had led him to believe firmly in facts and figures, not in the dangerous pastime of theorizing over values, or speculating as to what the next move of the "big fellows" might be.

Carleton nodded. "Weak," he answered, his tone pitched low and meant for his neighbor's ear only, "horribly weak; and all sorts of stories starting, too; it looks as bad as it could."

The young man nodded. "I supposed so," he said, with resignation, and then added whimsically, "Well, there's no use crying about it, I guess, but it certainly looks as if this was the time when little Willie gets it good and plenty, right in the neck."

Just in front of them, a pale, slender man, with blinking eyes, and a mumbling, trembling mouth that was never still, talked steadily in an undertone, apparently partly to himself, partly to the man who stood at his shoulder, a red-faced farmer with a hundred shares of Akme at stake.

"Now'd be the time," he muttered, "now'd be the time to jump right in; jump right in and buy four or five thousand shares; a man could make a fortune, and get out for good; it's the chance of a man's life; to jump right in and buy four or five thousand shares."

The countryman gazed at him in silence, sizing him up at first curiously, and then with a certain amused and not unkindly contempt.

"Four or five thousand!" he said, at last. "That ain't enough. Buy ten thousand while you're at it. You'll get twice as rich then," but the nervous man seemed to take no offense, and indeed, not even to notice the remark. "Now's the time," he rambled on, and it was clear that it was to himself alone that his mumblings were addressed, "to jump right in; that's the thing to do."

To Carleton, all at once it seemed that the group around the ticker was a gathering merely of the wrecks of men--of idle fools of greater or less degree. All of them he pitied, except the big, coa.r.s.e man with the toothpick, for whom he felt a huge dislike; and most of all his pity went out to the gentle man with the puzzled eyes; something unfair there seemed to be in such a one being decoyed into the market game--something repellant, as if one had lied, deliberately and maliciously, to a child.

Pity or anger--old or young--was there in all the group, he reflected with sudden distaste, one real man? And then, instant and unexpected, a lightning flame of keenest irony seemed to sear its way into his very soul; suppose Farrington had withheld the check? Was there, in all the group, _himself included_, one real man--

The bell rang. The ticker whirred. For a moment the dozen heads were grouped closely together over the tape, and then--the first quotation, five hundred Fuel at fifty-seven, gave warning of the truth; and the second and third verified it beyond all doubt or questioning. No further need of argument; no further agony; the suspense was over. So weak was the opening as to be almost incredible, so weak that it took a moment or two to adjust oneself to the shock. Akme Mining had closed the night before at ten. Carleton, figuring on the lowest, had imagined that it might open at eight and a half, or even eight. Two thousand shares came over the tape at six and a quarter. Everything else was in like ratio; everything else kept the same proportion--or lack of it. For perhaps ten seconds there was silence absolute, and then the reaction came. The young man with the rumpled hair turned sharply away, his hands thrust deep into his trousers' pockets, his lips curiously twisted and contorted, the tip of his tongue showing between his teeth. He gazed up at the blank wall, nodding unsmilingly to himself. "I thought so," he observed, quietly, "in the neck."

The man with the mumbling mouth started again to speak. "Now," he muttered, "now would be the time; to jump right in--" and then, as if just for a moment he caught a glimpse of himself and the figure he made, old and futile, worn out and wan, he stopped abruptly, rubbing his eyes, and for a time spoke no more, only standing there motionless, with the force of a habit too strong to be broken, glancing down unseeingly at the rows of little black letters and figures that issued steadily from the ticker, only to pa.s.s, unregarded and unmeaning, beneath the vacancy of his gaze.

Carleton had stood staring grimly with the rest. In a moment he felt a hand laid upon his arm, and turned to meet the wistful glance of the little gray man. "I beg your pardon," he asked timidly, "but can you tell me at what price Kentucky Coal is selling? I dislike to trouble you, but I am entirely unfamiliar with the abbreviations used."

Carleton nodded with the feeling that he might as well deal the little man a blow squarely between the eyes. "Forty-eight," he said shortly.

The little man turned very pale. "Forty-eight," he repeated mechanically, "can it be so? Forty-eight!" He shook his head slowly from side to side, then glanced at Carleton with a smile infinitely gentle and pathetic. "And to earn it," he murmured, "took me twenty years;" and then again, after a pause, "twenty years; and I'm afraid I'm pretty old to begin again now."

Carleton's heart smote him. Gladly enough would he have sought to aid, if a half of his own depleted fortune had remained to him. He stood for a moment as if in a dream. The whole scene--the familiar office, the stock-board, the ticker, the disheartened, discouraged group of unsuccessful gamblers--it was all real enough, and yet at the same time about it all there clung an air somehow theatric, melodramatic, hard of realization. Then, from the doorway, Turner called him sharply, and he hastened into the private office. Outwardly, the broker still had a pretty good grip on himself, but in his tone his rising excitement was easily enough discerned. "Look, Jack," he said quickly, "things are bad; there's all sorts of talk coming over our private wire. h.e.l.l's broke loose; that's the amount of it. I want you to get me ten thousand on your account as quick as the Lord'll let you; get fifteen, if you can.

It's better for us both that way. Saves worrying--any more than anybody can help. And Jack," he added, "I'm not supposed to know this, neither are you. But they're letting go a raft of your father's stuff over at Brown's. I don't know what the devil it means, but I call it a mighty bad sign."

Carleton nodded, and without wasting time, left the room. The ten minutes' walk between Turner's office and the Jefferson Building he covered in half that time, and striding hastily down the corridor, had almost reached Farrington's door when a tall, red-faced young man, emerging with equal speed, pulled up short to avoid the threatened collision, and stood back for Carleton to enter. Glancing at him, Jack recognized a casual acquaintance, and nodded to him as he pa.s.sed. "How are you, c.u.mmings?" he said, and the other, looking at him a little curiously, returned his salutation, and then pa.s.sed quickly on.

Farrington was seated at his desk, and Jack at once, and without ceremony, entered. Farrington, glancing up, acknowledged his greeting, with a curt nod; then looked at him with questioning gaze. "Well?" he said.

"Well," Jack echoed, a trifle deprecatingly, "you can guess what I've come for, I suppose. You saw the opening. I want ten thousand more--fifteen, if I can have it--but ten will do."

Farrington looked him straight in the eye.

"Ten will do," he echoed; then, dryly, "I should think it would." He paused for the veriest instant, then added, with the utmost directness, "It's no go, Mr. Carleton. I'm caught myself. I can't let you have a cent."

At the words the blood seemed suddenly to leave Jack Carleton's heart.

Something tightened in his throat, and a faint mist seemed to gather between Farrington's face and his own. Then, as he came to himself, "Can't let me have it!" he cried sharply. "Why, you told me last night you'd see me through, you won't go back on your word now. The money's promised. It's too late."

Farrington's face was expressionless. "You don't realize," he said, "what a time this is. It's one day out of a million--the worst there's ever been. If I could have foreseen--"

The telephone on his desk rang sharply, and he turned to answer it.

Jack Carleton sat as if stunned. This man had lied to him; had given him his word, and now, with the market hopelessly lower, retracted it; had thrown him a rope, and, as he hung helpless in mid air, was leaning coolly forward to cut it, and let him perish. And he had promised Turner--his word of honor. He felt physically faint and sick.

Farrington hung up the receiver, and then, as Jack started to speak, an interruption occurred. Suddenly the door opened, and c.u.mmings appeared in the entrance. He seemed greatly hurried and excited, as if he had been running hard. "All ready, Hal," he cried, "he'll ring you any minute now. And when he does, buy like h.e.l.l! For the personal, of course! He says--"

Quickly Farrington cut in on him. "Shut up!" he cried, so sharply that Jack could not but note his tone, "Can't you see I'm busy? Wait outside, till I'm through," and c.u.mmings, his red face many shades redder than before, at once hastily withdrew.

Immediately Carleton leaned forward. "Look here," he cried desperately, "this isn't right. You told me you'd see me through. Those were your very words. You can't go back on them now. If you do, you've got me ruined--worse than ruined. It isn't only the money; I've pledged my word; pledged myself to make good. I've got to have it, Farrington; that's all; I've got to; can't you understand?"

Farrington frowned. "You _can't_ have it," he answered sharply, "and don't take that tone to me, either, Mr. Carleton. Haven't I given you twenty thousand already? You must have misunderstood me last night. I said I'd see you through if I could, and now I find I can't. That's all.

I tell you I can't; and I won't stop to split hairs about it, either.

I've got too much at stake. You'd better not wait, Mr. Carleton. There's no use in it. There's nothing for you here."

Carleton's eyes blazed. Just for an instant things swam before him; for an instant he half crouched, like an animal about to spring. In the office, absolute stillness reigned, save for the tall clock in the corner ticking off the seconds--five--ten--fifteen--and then, all at once, his tightly closed hands unclenched, his lips relaxed; on the instant he stood erect, and without speaking, turned quickly on his heel, and left the room.

Grim and white of face, he burst five minutes later into Turner's private office, with a bearing so changed that Turner could not help but notice it, and read the trouble there. "Something wrong?" he asked sharply, and Carleton nodded, with a strange feeling as if he were acting a part in some sinister dream. "I couldn't get it," he said.