Part 11 (1/2)

Overshadowed by the importance of the Palmer case, the violent death of a woman of the underworld on an obscure street near Bradfield's attracted little attention, and by the papers the affair was disposed of in a few brief lines of the smallest type. Suicide seemed to be favored as the cause of death, and despondency and weariness with life the reason therefor.

That Gordon should be questioned both by Mrs. Holton and Rose was inevitable. Not that Mrs. Holton, with hazy memories of talking too freely while the wine had worked its spell upon her, altogether regretted that Providence had seen fit to intervene, or that Rose, after her work was done, was deeply concerned with Palmer's subsequent fate, but to both, knowing the situation as they did, the sequence of events seemed, though lacking the faintest shadow of proof, beyond all question to implicate Gordon. To both he made the same answer. He admitted that Palmer's disappearance, coming just at the time it did, was a remarkable stroke of good fortune for all of them, but as to any knowledge of it, outside of the theories advanced by the papers, he blandly professed entire ignorance. That Annie Holton should have come to her death on the night of the same day on which Palmer had disappeared, he further acknowledged to be a most remarkable coincidence, but so far as he could see, nothing more than that. And with this they were fain to be content.

To Rose, indeed, the succeeding weeks brought a vague sense of injustice and disappointment. Constantly Gordon had referred to the getting of the money from Palmer as the turning point in their fortunes; the first real step towards the culmination of their plans; as marking the time when he should have leisure to be constantly at her side; and now, so far from this being so, she found as the days went by that she saw less of him even than before. Moreover, on the rare occasions when he did dine with her at Bradfield's or call at her rooms, he was preoccupied, inattentive, distraught, his mind only too plainly upon other things.

And in truth, Gordon for a time had found himself more perplexed than he would perhaps have cared to own. Even with sufficient capital, and a practically certain knowledge of the future course of the metal market, the problem still remained to him how best to make use of his point of vantage. The first move in the game successfully accomplished, the second was yet to be made.

At length, after long deliberation, he went to young Bob Randall, floor broker for Parkman and Brooks. Randall's father, old Sam Randall, the big cotton man, had just emerged victor from a desperate fight with the Parker-Moorfield interests, the loudest bellowing and highest tossing of all the great cotton bulls, in which battle, besides the prestige gained, he was incidentally reported to have cleaned up something over two millions on the sharp break in July cotton. Young Bob, besides having money back of him, was one of those gifted mortals who seem always able to carry others with them in whatever they choose to undertake. With a national reputation as an athlete while still at school, in college he had played end on the football team, and then made the crew, both with the same ease with which he had been chosen president of his cla.s.s, and called out as first man on the Alpha Chi. In addition, in his few leisure moments he had worked enough, as he had himself expressed it, to ”somehow get by,” so that at last, infinitely to his friends' surprise, and somewhat to his own, he found himself, at the end of his four years, ent.i.tled to his sheepskin, and perchance with somewhat mingled feelings of regret for lost opportunities of learning, and of satisfaction at more substantial and worldly-wise success, heard himself, together with three hundred of his mates, welcomed by the venerable president in his cla.s.s-day address to ”the fellows.h.i.+p of educated men.”

To young Randall, then, over the coffee and cigars in a private dining-room at the Federal, Gordon broached the subject.

”Bob,” he said abruptly, ”do you want to make a barrel of money?”

Randall nodded. ”Sure thing,” he answered briefly. ”How?”

Gordon did not at once reply, and when he did, it was to answer the query with another.

”What do you know about coppers?” he asked.

”Soft,” answered the younger man readily, ”and going lower, too.

There's a big surplus supply of the metal stored somewhere, or at least so everybody says.”

Gordon leaned back in his chair, gazing at his companion from beneath half-closed eyelids.

”Just one more question, Bob,” he said; ”don't think it's an impertinence. About how much are you getting now?”

”Three thou,” answered Randall promptly. ”And now give me a turn. What in the devil are you driving at, anyway?”

Gordon hesitated the veriest instant, as if choosing which course to pursue. Then he answered, speaking with the utmost earnestness.

”Here's the story, Bob. I've got a great chance; the kind that only comes once in a man's lifetime, and of course I'd be a fool if I didn't want to make the most of it. It's perfectly true that coppers are soft; it's perfectly true that they're going lower, but that there's any acc.u.mulation of the metal I know to be absolutely false.

And more than that: I can almost name the precise day when there's going to be launched the biggest copper boom this country's ever seen.

A boom that's going to last, barring the absolutely unforeseen, for several years, and that's going to provide the speculative opportunity of the century. Now my proposition is just this: Leave Parkman and Brooks at once; get your father to advance you a hundred thousand dollars, and then start in partners.h.i.+p with me. I'll put in a like amount, and this information, which I'll absolutely guarantee, against your ability to bring your father and some of his crowd in as customers, to say nothing of your own following among the younger set.

Nothing succeeds like success. We'll do well by our customers, and incidentally we'll make our own reputations and our fortunes beside.

Bob, it's an absolute cinch, and I don't mind letting you know that I started with a list of twenty men as possibilities, and eliminated one after the other until you were left as the man I wanted for a partner.

Now, what do you say?”

Randall had allowed his cigar to go out, as he sat listening to Gordon's words.

”It sounds good,” he said at length, ”but, Gordon, tell me one thing.

I know your reputation on the Exchange, of course, and I know you're a bully good judge of the market, but the information you're giving me is away out of the ordinary. I think you ought to be willing to tell me where and how you got it.”

Gordon smiled. ”I can tell you where,” he answered readily, ”but not how. Is this good enough for you?” and, leaning forward, he whispered a name known the world over.

Randall started slightly, and then gave a low whistle of astonishment.

”The devil you say!” he exclaimed. ”Well, you have struck it rich. I didn't know you stood in with him.”