II
At the appointed time Hammond went up to the legal offices of Winch, Stanton and Reid. An impatient-looking young male clerk was standing by the outer rail with hat and coat on ready to leave. The balance of the office staff had departed.
“Mr. Winch is engaged just now,” said the clerk, “but he left word for you to wait here. He will call you when he is ready.” Having delivered his message, the youth pushed through the double doors and ran downstairs three steps at a time.
Hammond swore under his breath. He hadn’t bothered about his evening meal, thinking the session with Winch would be of short duration, and he was tired and hungry.
He could distinguish the rumble of low-pitched voices in Winch’s private office, but could catch no word of what was said. Five minutes dragged by—ten—twenty—thirty. At a quarter to seven Hammond was furious enough to jump up and leave without giving any notice.
The door of Winch’s office opened, and, Winch, poking his head out, called: “Come in, Mr. Hammond.”
Hammond crossed the threshold and drew back in amazement. Standing by Winch’s desk was a tall man, iron-grey of hair with a keen face and deepset, piercing dark eyes.
It was Norman T. Gildersleeve!
“How do you do, Mr. Hammond?” Mr. Gildersleeve greeted the young man quietly, extending his hand. “You weren’t quite prepared to meet me here?”
“Scarcely, Mr. Gildersleeve, but”—Hammond was regaining his composure—“I’ve become quite used to running into the unexpected since I parted with you on the night of September the twenty-third.”
Gildersleeve smiled. “Quite so, quite so,” he agreed. “However, we’ve decided to acquaint you with some of the missing details that have been baffling you, Mr. Hammond, though I must confess that there are a few things that we would like to know more about ourselves. Later on—”
“Yes, at the club, after dinner,” briskly cut in Martin Winch. “You and Mr. Hammond can get together in a side room and thresh the whole thing out. We’d better hurry over if we don’t wish to be locked out of the café.”
They departed in Winch’s car. At the City Club, Norman T. Gildersleeve’s appearance created no sudden sensation among the scattered few that were present. Apparently, the New York capitalist was not readily recognised, though his picture had appeared many times in the papers since his disappearance. Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., who was a late arrival, alone picked him out. Slack came striding over to the table where Gildersleeve, Winch and Hammond sat awaiting their order.
“As I live,” he cried, “if it isn’t Norman Gildersleeve in the flesh!”
“Hush,” admonished Gildersleeve in an undertone as the other gripped his hand. “I am anxious for this matter to slip over with as little notoriety as possible.”
“But you’ve already got all the notoriety that’s coming to you,” laughed Slack. “The papers have been full of nothing else since you dropped out of sight. Where on earth have you been?”
Gildersleeve shrugged. “Oh, just on a little private hunting trip above Moose Horn,” he replied. “I needed a rest and thought I’d take it in on my way here.”
Slack’s brows went up ever so slightly. “Bag any big fellows?”
He asked it innocently enough, but Hammond thought he caught the faintest of sarcastic inflexions.
Gildersleeve ignored the question. “Now that I’m back,” he remarked, “I’m anxious to see the pulp and paper mill get under way in time. By the way, Slack, how is the North Star getting on with the poles?”
“Swimmingly, swimmingly,” repeated the politician. “Nannabijou Bay is jammed almost to the last inch with timber. Away over the contract cut, I believe.”
“That’s fine. How about delivery?”
“Starts next week, soon as we get the last of our dredging contracts off our hands,” replied Slack. “We’ll have our whole fleet of equipment on the job.”
“Then there’s nothing in this talk that is going around of a strike among your tugmen?”
“Absolutely nothing,” emphatically assured Slack. “The North Star never had a strike in its history. The men tried to put up a bluff of going out, at the instigation of a nest of agitators, but they’ll never go out—they know better than to try any of that stuff on us. See you later, Gildersleeve.”
Gildersleeve’s eyes trailed after Slack’s retreating figure in a fixed, hard glitter. “When Ananias quit the job, he never dreamed he would have so illustrious a successor,” he commented grimly. “Slack’s one grand qualification for the presidency of the North Star is his magnificent ability as an unmitigated liar.”
The meal progressed in comparative silence. It was after they had retired to the privacy of a side room that Hammond, prompted by curiosity he had until now curbed, asked casually: “By the way, Mr. Winch, what became of the camp preacher you bailed out this afternoon—the Rev. Nathan Stubbs?”
Winch looked at Gildersleeve and they both smiled cynically. “He has disappeared—vanished in thin air, as you might say,” enlightened Winch.
“And left you in the air with bail?”
“It was cheap to lose him at any price,” spoke up Gildersleeve with a frown. “He was through with his job—and damned good riddance!”