IV
The telephone operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the plugs in the switchboard and answered in advance:
“Mr. Merriwether's office!”
From the other end of the wire came:
“This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Personal matter.”
“He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?”
“No. Say it is Mr. Waters—about Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. E. H. Merriwether—deluded people who thought they could get what they wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private secretary's line, saying: “Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
“I'll talk to him,” hastily said the private secretary.
“Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private secretary. Has anything happened to Tom that—Oh! Yes—of course! At once, Mr. Waters.”
McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire.
“Who?” said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. “Waters? Oh yes. Go ahead!”
And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice:
“Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean crazy or—er—alarming; but—don't you know?—unusual.... Yes, sir! A little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about the opera. Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs. Of course it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No; never! We don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan, where he has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't bring us into any—you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a little worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about being in love, and he—er—he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes, Mr. Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It was a very delicate matter and—Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether. We'd all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by.”
E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his admirers called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive gambler's face which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could be that he was wounded in a vital spot.
His son Tom was all this great millionaire had!
His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was it one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond the reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend of Tom's; but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private secretary.
“McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to find out whether my son Tom has been up there—box-office—and what he is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist on—er”—he could not bring himself to say mental diseases—“on nervous troubles, and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow morning. He will have breakfast with us—say, at eight-thirty. I don't want Tom to know.”
He avoided McWayne's eyes.
“Yes, sir,” said McWayne.
“Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about Tom. I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop everything else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that Tom is acting a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke—or a trick. I want to find out—that's all.”
He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would be a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could not afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said in his calm, emotionless voice:
“I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in.”
There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that at will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart—this little chap that people called ruthless.