The Plunderers: A Novel

by Edwin Lefevre

I

THE bell of the telephone on the desk of the alert city editor of the New York Planet rang twice. The alert city editor did not instantly answer it. He was reading a love-letter not meant for his eyes. It had been sent in with his mail by mistake. The bell rang again.

“Yes?” he said, angrily. “Who? Oh, hello, Bill!” There was a pause. Then: “Shall we? Why, friend, he's already started. Thanks awfully! Sure thing!”

He swung round and cast a roaming glance about the big room. It was Sunday, the sacred day when nothing happened.

“Parkhurst!” he called.

Parkhurst, one of the Planet's star men, sauntered over to the desk. He had planned to do other things with his time this nice Sunday afternoon. Monday-morning stories are not apt to be exciting. Therefore he limped pathetically in anticipation of the excuse he proposed to make to get off. He was Williams's chum.

“Jimmy,” said the city editor, with his habitual air of giving assignments as though they were decorations awarded for distinguished services, “I just had Bill Stewart, of the Hotel Brabant, on the telephone. He says there is a man there who has seven million dollars in gold-dust in the engine-room of the hotel. Klondike mine-owner. Does not believe in banks, I guess. Takes mighty big stocking to hold the cash—”

“Do you want me to write the story?” interrupted Parkhurst, coldly. It was his way of showing his city editor his place.

“Coal-Oil Johnny up to date! Don't fall for any press agent—”

Parkhurst forgot the excuse he was going to make. His limp vanished. The story promised well. He hastened to the Brabant and saw the room clerk, Stewart, who had tipped off the city editor.

“Yes; he is in,” said Stewart. “But if you think it is another case of Coal-Oil Johnny you've got another guess coming. Not that he is a tightwad; he is liberal enough with his nuggets, the bell-hops say. But he is no fool. And yet—think of it!—he takes into Seattle with him from Nome eight or ten millions of gold-dust! There he hires a special train to bring him and his gold-dust to New York. He arrives at the Grand Central in the early morning. They hustle round and find seven trucks to carry the boxes of gold-dust for him. He follows in a taxicab. He comes straight to this hotel—”

Stewart here swelled up his chest. It made the reporter say, amiably:

“It was considered a good hotel once; but news travels slowly in the frozen North.”

“He comes up here, registers, and then expects me to let him take the whole fifteen tons of gold up to his room. What do you know about that? Well, then he wanted to hire a whole floor so as to distribute the weight. But you know it is a highly concentrated weight. No floor would stand it. Gold is the heaviest thing there is.”

“It is,” agreed Parkhurst, hastily. “It is, dear friend. That's why I never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and—”

“Let me tell you,” cut in Stewart, full of his story. “So, being Sunday and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, worth, he says, about eight million—”

“Lead me to it before you hand in your bill,” entreated the reporter.

“There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the job of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights, Jimmy,” said Stewart. “I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I think he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always writing about—don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the polite hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of eighteen seventy-four?”

“What's the full name?” asked the reporter. “There it is!” and Stewart pointed to the autograph in the hotel register.

“Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G.”

There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two personal servants.

“Looks like a school-boy's writing.”

“He is about forty,” said the clerk.

“Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore—”

“Here he comes,” interjected Stewart. “I'll introduce you.”

J. Willoughby Parkhurst, the reporter, was startled by the change in Stewart's face. It had taken on the ingratiating soul-sweetness of one who enjoys your story with all his faculties—the complete surrender of self, soul, and hopes of heaven. The clerk exuded gratitude from every pore.

“Gosh!” exclaimed J. Willoughby Parkhurst in amazement, and turned quickly to see who it was that had made Stewart's greed-stricken face turn itself into a moving-picture film of all the delights.

A man was approaching—a man of about the reporter's height, square-shouldered, smooth-shaved, strong-chinned, with an outdoor complexion, and the clear, clean, steady eyes of a man without a liver. There was a metallic glint to the gray-blue of the iris that made the eyes a trifle hard. The lips were not only compressed, but you guessed that the compression was habitual. Even a private detective could have told that this man had made up his mind to do one thing, and therefore he would do it. There was no doubt of it.

“Oh, Mr. Jerningham!” The name issued like a stream of saccharin out of the eddying smiles on Stewart's face.

“The expectation of twenty millions of gold, at least, on that face!” thought Parkhurst, more impressed by the smile than by the cause thereof.

“Here is that nugget I promised you.” And Mr. Jerningham dropped four-and-three-quarter pounds troy of gold into the clerk's coy hand. “It is the largest I ever found in six years' mining on the Klondike.”

The reporter later told the city editor—he did not print this—that Stewart, as he got the nugget, showed plainly on his face his disappointment that Jerningham had not come from the South-African diamond-fields. A carbon crystal weighing four pounds and three-quarters—that would have been worth a real smile! But the clerk said, gratefully: “It's very good of you. Thank you ever so much! I'd like to introduce to you my friend, Mr. Park-hurst.”

“Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. Parker, did you say?”

The Klondiker spoke coldly. It made the reporter say, subtly antagonistic:

“Parkhurst!”

“Any relation to—”

“Haven't a relation in the world.”

“Shake again, friend,” said Jerningham, warmly. “I am in the same boat myself!”

They shook hands again.

“Do you want to be very nice?” asked Jerningham, almost eagerly, of the reporter.

“It is my invariable custom to be that,” Parkhurst assured him, gravely.

“Dine with me to-night.” Jerningham looked expectant.

“I have an engagement with my friend the bishop,” said the reporter, who hated clergymen for obvious reasons. “But—let me see!” Parkhurst closed his eyes the better to see how he could break his engagement. “I'll send regrets to the bishop and dine with you with pleasure.”

“Mr. Parkhurst is on the Planet” put in Stewart. It was the way he said it!

“Ah, yes,” said Jemingham, vaguely.

“In fact, Mr. Jemingham,” said Parkhurst, “I was sent to interview you.”

“Huh?” ejaculated the Klondiker, blankly. It was plain he was virgin soil.

“All to myself!” thought J. Willoughby, with a mental smack of the lips. Then he began, in that congratulatory tone of voice with which practised interviewers corkscrew admissions out of their victims: “We heard about your trip from Seattle, and about your—er—baggage. Would you mind telling me a little more about it? We could”—with a honeyed grin at Stewart—“sit down in a nice little corner of the café and have a nice little chat.”

“I don't mind—if you don't,” said Jemingham, with one of those diffidently eager smiles of people who are doing you a favor and do not know it.

The reporter led the way to the café, selected a small table in the farthest corner, beckoned to a waiter, pointed to a chair, and nodded toward the Alaskan Monte Cristo.

“Thank you!” said Jemingham, with real gratitude, and sat down. Then he looked at his watch, saw that it was only four o'clock, and said to the waiter, “A cup of tea, please.”

“Huh?” It was all J. Willoughby could rise to. A miner and tea? What about the free champagne for the hundreds? A tea-drinker would not scatter walnut-sized diamonds along the Great White Way.

“I got used to it. My pal was English. We found it preferable to whisky in the Klondike.” Mr. Jerningham made no effort to disguise the apologetic tone.

“I'll have the same,” cleverly said J. Willoughby. Then, to clinch it, “Of course you know that in the exclusive clubs to-day men drink more tea than liquor!”

“It's the proper thing—eh?” said Jerningham, with a sort of head-waiter deference that made the reporter stare in surprise. “I am glad you told me that.”

“Oh yes. It is no longer good form to get load—er—intoxicated. It's one of the few good things we've got from England—tea-drinking,” the reporter said. “And, Mr. Jerningham, to get back to our subject, just how did you happen to go to the Klondike?”

“It began in New York,” said Jerningham, and drew his lips together. It was clearly not a pleasant memory.

“It did?” You could tell that J. Willoughby was grateful. “Well, well! And—” He frowned as though a date had escaped him. He really suggested time to the miner, for Jerningham volunteered: “When I was twelve years old.”

“That's about twenty years ago,” ventured the reporter in the affirmative tone of voice that inevitably elicits contradiction and the exact figures from the victim.

“Thirty-two years ago, sir.”

“Well, well! And—How did you say it began?” The reporter put his hand to his ear to show that his hardness of hearing had prevented him from getting Jerningham's previous answer to the same question.

“My father!” Mr. Jemingham nodded twice, to show that those two words told the whole story.

“Ah, yes! And then?” The reporter looked as if instant death Would follow the non-receipt of information; and Jerningham, as though against a lifelong determination to be silent, spoke—and frowned as he spoke:

“My father! He was a coachman in the employ of old David Soulett, who was the son of Walter and the father of Richard and David the third, and of Madge, who married the Duke of Peterborough. Old David Soulett—the second, he was—was my father's employer. My father was English. He came to New York when he was eighteen. He went straight into the Souletts' stable, became head coachman, and lived with the family for fifty years. They pensioned him off. I grew up with the boys—called one another by our first names. Do you get that?—by our first names!”

Jemingham compressed his lips tightly and nodded. His eyes filled with reminiscence—sweet, yet sad.

“You did, eh?” said the reporter.

If J. Willoughby had been addicted to slang he would have used the same wondering tone of voice and would have exclaimed, “What do you know about that!”

“And that is why I went to the Klondike!”

There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination that Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, “Did they send you away?”

“They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It was enough.”

“Yes, of course!” The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. “But I don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say.”

“They were!” explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. “They were Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had everything I did not have. So I went to the Klondike.”

“Yes?”

“Is it not clear?”

“No!” said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain negative.

“They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But if they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not been the son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they wouldn't have been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. Policemen at the corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove by and seemed really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You felt the cops would never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the station-house—always to the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point to it—the Soulett mansion—with an air of pride, as though they owned it! Clerks in shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts walked in, and later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, they said; and he said, said he—and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?”

“Why?” repeated the reporter, hypnotically.

“Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two people, including the very best there were in literature, art, science, theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, thirty-eight pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among grave-diggers, laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his great-grandchildren! Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. The only thing that didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. Genius for real estate they call his madness to-day. But it was an obsession. He bought a farm in what is now the swell shopping district; and another where the Hotel Regina is; and another beginning where the Vandeventer houses are. The old lunatic's mad purchases are now worth one hundred and fifty million dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, with fake portraits showing an intellectual-looking country squire. Grave-digger—that's what! But the money really began with him and the near-gentleman with Walter, who knew the best families because his father buried them one after another. By the time the real-estate market got to going in earnest David was born—of course a gentleman! What did it? Unearned money!”

“Yes. But what's digging graves got to do with your going to the Klondike?”

“Everything. It gave me the secret of it—the unearned part. Don't you see?”

“No.”

“My dear sir, I loved the company of the Soulett boys and I enjoyed the society of their equals. So I naturally desired to become their equal. To become a gentleman I had to become rich. But the money must not be earned; so I couldn't make it in trade—which, moreover, was too slow. The careers of butcher, plumber, and liquor-dealer, that might have made me rich quickly, were closed to me by the social disqualifications they carry. And the careers of Jim Sands and Bill Train in Wall Street were too malodorous; besides which, you can't make very much money on the Stock Exchange without treading on influential social toes. Hence the Klondike. Do you see now?”

“I'm beginning to.”

“Well?”

“Do you mean,” said the reporter, to get it straight, “that you went to the Klondike to make money so as to climb—I mean, so as to go into society?”

“Exactly so! Yes, sir! And I tell you, Mr. Parker—”

“Park-hurst!” said J. Willoughby, with a frown of injured vanity.

“Mr. Parkhurst, a man has to have some strong motive to enable him to conquer success. In all my wanderings for twenty-five years, prospecting in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, the Southwest, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington, and finally all over Alaska, I had but one object in mind, one purpose. It sustained me. It gave me courage when others despaired; it kept me marching onward when others fell by the wayside and died or became sheep-ranchers. I had no thought for amusement, none for pleasure, none for love. I simply kept up my search. It was the search for happiness that the old knights used to go out on. It was a search, Mr. Parker-hurst, for the yellow admission ticket to the Four Hundred!”

“Have you found it?” J. Willoughby could not help it.

“Let me tell you,” pursued Jerningham, ignoring the question. “I used to read the society columns of the New York papers whenever I felt myself growing discouraged; and that always revived me. Up in the Klondike I had saved fifteen hundred dollars and I paid one thousand dollars in gold-dust for a six-months-old copy of a society paper which had an account of Mrs. Masters's ball. To me, 'among those present' meant more than a list of gilt-edge bonds. I've got it yet.”

He paused to take from his pocket-book a tattered clipping and showed it to the newspaper man with a mixture of pride and tenderness and solicitude lest it be harmed, as a father shows the only extant photograph of the most wonderful baby in captivity.

“I thought my name would fit in very nicely between the Janeways and the Jesups. It was a good investment, that one thousand dollars, for I felt I had to get a gait on, and that very same day I went on that prospecting trip to the Endicott Mountains which changed my luck for me. Everything came my way then—I mean, in mining. I am getting six hundred thousand dollars a year out of my claims; and that is because I believe fifty thousand dollars a month enough for a bachelor. More would be—er—sort of ostentatious. Don't you think so?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed J. Willoughby Parkhurst, with a shudder.

“When I marry I'll make it one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a month.”

“I agree with you,” said Parkhurst—“because, really, two cannot live as cheaply as one.” He thrilled when he thought how he would play up that promised income in his story.

“That's what I say,” Jerningham said, gratefully. “Of course there's the seven millions and a half of gold-dust I have brought with me. It's downstairs.” His grim mouth became more determinedly grim than ever. This man was the kind that gets what he wants, with or without money. He will not climb, thought Parkhurst; he will vault into society. He asked Jerningham:

“Have you really got that much down-stairs? I mean,” he hastily corrected himself, “have you no fear of the danger of going about with that much loose change?”

“No. It's guarded by men who are getting big pay for being honest. You can buy honesty—if you treat it as a luxury and pay for it as such. Each box weighs one hundred and fifty pounds, for convenience in handling. Would you like to see the stuff?” He could not hide a boyish eagerness—not at all offensive—to impress his new friend. J. Willoughby Parkhurst forgave him in advance, and to prove it said, heartily:

“Very much indeed!”

“Very well. Please come with me.” And he led the way to the engine-room. They went down two flights. At the door of the engine-room they met the engineer, who bowed with an obsequiousness that indicated sincere gratitude and renewed hope—as of a man who has received a handsome gratuity and is expecting another.

In the middle of the concrete floor, of the engine-room, piled up in an amazingly small mound of boxes, was the gold.

“Each box has about fifty thousand dollars in dust,” explained Jerningham, with what one might have called a matter-of-fact pride. “Would you like to open one?”

“I don't want to put you to any trouble—not for worlds; but I do want to see the inside of one like anything.”

“No trouble. I say, Mr. Wilkinson,” to the hotel engineer, who had followed them, a deferential smile fastened to his face, “could you get me a hammer and chisel and a screw-driver?”

“Certainly, Mr. Jerningham,” said the engineer, with obvious pride at being part of an extraordinary adventure. He reappeared presently with the tools and a burly assistant. They pried off the steel hoop and cracked off the sealing-wax from over the heads of the screws that held the lid in place. They then unscrewed the cover—and there before their wide-gaping eyes was a boxful of yellow Yukon gold.

Jerningham smilingly looked at J. Willoughby Parkhurst and waved his hand toward the treasure—a gesture that said Help yourself!—only it said it humorously. And so the reporter smiled indulgently and plunged his hand in it.

“How heavy!” he exclaimed, involuntarily. He had meant to be witty, as penniless people always are in the presence of great wealth to show that they are not impressed.

“It will be light enough to blow away here,” said Jerningham so seriously that nobody smiled—indeed, everybody hoped for a blast in the direction of his own pocket. Put Jerningham merely said: “Thank you. Will you screw it on again?” And the engineer did. Jerningham did not stay to see the rescrewing finished. He took Parkhurst's arm and walked out. The reporter told him:

“I can't help thinking it was imprudent. The detectives now know they can open the boxes and—”

“It isn't likely that all eight will be dishonest at the same minute. That's why I got eight instead of four. But, even if they all wanted to, how much could they get away with? With the contents of one of the boxes, fifty thousand dollars? Well, that isn't much. I can't afford to let that gold be a bother to me. I brought it along so that it could be my servant—not for me to be its slave.”

“I've heard others make that selfsame remark,” said J. Willoughby, cheerfully, “but they never struck off the aureate shackles!”

“My friend, it's not in striking off shackles; that is always difficult. The secret is in not letting them become shackles!” said Jerningham, grimly. “A man does not confidently expect during twenty-five years to strike it rich some day without very carefully thinking of what he is going to do with the gold after he gets it.”