VI
For one brief dazed moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly the ticker stopped, as it did in the old days whenever a member's demise was announced. The ticker's silence, with its suggestion of death, did in truth strangle bull hopes. Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost stopped when the ticker did. Then the storm burst, increasing in violence as corroboration came from newspaper extras, from the Wall Street news agencies and the news tickers, from brokers and bankers who had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company and had rushed out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal moment the great house of W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the capital crime—in high finance—of indecision.
The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir—: the selling-power is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice—a beginning!—and it will itself complete the havoc.
Inside support—that is, buying by Garrettson's firm—would have been the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the brief instant that saw absolutely no “support” forthcoming the flood of selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and reputations.
The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume of selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the hillside. From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to sixty-five by fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time—to sixty; to fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital stock, of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen million dollars—one million a minute! A psychological statistician would have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of the moneyed world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial invulnerability; it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result of his partners' inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the firm's existence. The partners would have understood death and could have provided against it, stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even might have capitalized their senior partner's demise had it come from typhoid, tuberculosis, or taxicab. But the disappearance of the great Garrettson, the fatal incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing and the hoping, paralyzed the faculties of the junior partners of Wall Street's mighty firm. And the costliness of their indecision was raised into the millions by the fact that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, the junior partners, agreed that Garrettson, though absent, was well, and were about to take steps to check the gamblers' panic, the telephone summoned Jenkins.
“Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B—D! Say nothing to the family! Hurry!” And the speaker rang off.
His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still unrelieved uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest and—Wall Street said—the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and repeated the message.
“Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?” asked Johnson.
“I don't know—yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,' and I didn't suspect—yes; I think it was.” After a second's pause, “I know it was Pierson!”
“Then, for Heaven's sake—” began Lane.
“Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!” said Johnson.
“Meantime we are losing precious time—” Johnson had already gone to the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he said, the receiver at his ear:
“We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if—” The emphasis on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that there was no need to say it. “You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and we hoping and expecting and uncertain if—Hello! Dr. Pierson's office? This is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the doctor there? Out? Where did he go? Speak out—I am Mr. Garrettson's partner. Hotel Cressline, Suite D? Thank you.” Johnson turned and said: “Dr. Pierson was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to attend Mr. Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask—”
“And meantime,” said Jenkins, excitedly, “he might be dying or dead; and we—”
“Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive use. Hurry!”
Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone once more.
“Give me the Hotel Cressline!” And presently, “Hello! Cressline? This is W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes—Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's partner. Is Mr. Gar—... Yes—yes—I want to talk to him.... Why not? Is it our Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You will tell me!—or, by Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!”
“What did they say, Walter?” asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law of Garrettson.
“He said I could go to hell!” growled Johnson, his face brick-red from anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great Garrettson. “He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not to be interrupted under any circumstances—no cards sent up, no telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!”
The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was something like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though each expected the other to say he did not expect a terrible final chapter. In the veiled woman each feared what was worse than mere death—scandal! Of course, much would be suppressed, as had been done in the case of Winthrop Kyle or of Burton Willett, to whom death had come suddenly and under dubious circumstances.
“William is not that kind!” said Lane, loyally. “He has never—”
“I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!” repeated Walter Johnson, vehemently.
“Neither do I,” agreed Lane. “But—” He looked furtively at Walter Johnson.
Johnson nodded, and said, “Yes, that's the devil of it!” He lost himself in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson.
That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving off a panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied themselves to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and such was the discipline of the office that no word was brought to the palefaced partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or of the newspaper extras.
It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or force of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic message of the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in stocks had taken on the proportions of a panic.
“Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!”
“No!” incredulously shouted Lane.
“It'll never do!”
“Yes, but—”
Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to do things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began to give out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson brokers—they kept some of these for the effect of obvious “Garrettson buying.” It was all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter what had happened, the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! Silence, yes; untruth, never! And yet silence might be taken as corroboration of the awful stories. He could not say that the great Garrettson was alive and could not say he was dead. He must not mention Hotel Cressline. A trying situation! To the news-agency men, who would put out the news on the Street, from whom also the daily papers would get it, he said, very calmly and impressively:
“I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The iron trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest business in its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we consider the stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent speculative movements. They are designed to frighten timid holders. I advise every man who owns Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it.
“But about Mr. Gar—”
“Not another word!” he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece of will-power.
The newspaper men translated it: “Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!” And in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the message. What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was dead or not—the kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!—and if so what would be done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. Wherefore the traders sold more of the same stock—short—and the bona-fide holders could develop no conviction strong enough as to the wisdom of holding on, so long as the price continued to go down.
Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in a fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send up any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent, succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after repeated knocking brought no response from within.
They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they found on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil.
Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson:
“I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and—”
“I never telephoned you!” interrupted Dr. Pierson.
“Why, you said—”
“I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the hotel—or so the voice said—to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken suddenly ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him.”
“Damn!” said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the office, hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the fake messages and Dr. Pierson's story.
“That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, and—”
“It's a bear raid then!”
“Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry down!”
Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the higher Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and the office-boys.
In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in a voice which one might say sweated respect:
“What do you think now, Mr. Robison?”
The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of Steel, and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger had scented a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street.
“Yes?” said Mr. Robison, absently.
“What do you think now?”
“What do I think now?” repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically.
“Yes, sir,” said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an office-boy about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at the broker. Then, with a little start, he said so distinctly that every listening customer heard very plainly:
“I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know.”
“It looks to me,” persisted Richards, fishing for information, “that they can't keep on going down forever.”
“No—not forever,” assented Mr. Robison, calmly.
“Maybe the bottom is not far off.”
“Maybe not.”
“If a man bought now he might do well.”
“Then buy 'em.”
“Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to go long.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, “don't buy 'em.”
Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to say “Thank you!” in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed customers drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, but any experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more important to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken Profit is the jeremiad of the ticker-fiend.
Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show “resiliency,” as financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. Robison's side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of money-making news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, whose paper profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand dollars.
“Mr. Robison!” he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is accustomed to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The other customers, who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to cover, looked at the boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his whispered words.
“Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing,” said Mr. Robison through his nose, with a pleasant smile.
The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness which would give them the tip they all expected.
“The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed.”
The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, “Stung again!”
“Wait a minute my lad. Here!” and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar bill and a small envelope.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy. He put the five dollars in his pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, “Mr. Richards.”
He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on which was written:
Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market.
J. B. Robison.
Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the empty place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite customers moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen just the same.
“Your order is executed, Mr. Robison.” Mr. Richards whispered it out of a corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking meditatively at the quotation-board.
“Got the whole twenty?”
“Yes.”
“Good!”
“Do you think—” began the broker in a voice that would make flint turn to putty.
“I do!” cut in Robison. “I do, indeed! There is no telling what has happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts.” He had unconsciously raised his voice.
A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces drew nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably:
“By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in the stock-market—failure, for instance.”
“Oh, but that's out of the question.”
“Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very efficiently policed city thoroughfare.”
“Yes; but a failure—”
“When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!”
“Do you think—”
“No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions so characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I ascribed the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull cards, as you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. Now it isn't likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. Garrettson. There would be no sense in murdering him—not even by a stock speculator; but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson specialties has by now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I should say prices ought to be touching bottom; and what ought to be generally is, in the stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or another, very soon now. If the news is good the price of Steel will rebound smartly. If it is bad we'll at least know what to look to, and with the elimination of the mystery there should be a cessation of the selling. There will follow a rush to cover and then—There you are! I believe it's begun already. Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! Get 'em back!”
The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover and gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in figures on the quotation-board.
Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before the newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H. Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly now. Somebody must pay—-and it wouldn't be the firm.
Amos Kidder rushed into the office. “He's found!” he yelled, excitedly, addressing Mr. Robison.
“Where was he?” asked Mr. Robison, very calmly.
“At home—damn 'im!”
“Why that, my boy?”
“He won't talk—says he was in his library all the time.”
“We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?” said Robison, with a smile.
“Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it were the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove that he wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth—”
“The whole truth?” echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile.
“Don't you know it?” Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously.
“Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about anything. Take dinner with me to-morrow night—will you?”
“Yes.” There was a smoldering defiance—it wasn't suspicion exactly—in the newspaper man's voice and eyes.
“Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel.”
“Now that Garrettson is—”
“Yes, now—at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a week?”
“Yes.”
“I told you I would.”
“An accident is not a fair test of—”
“An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen.”
As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been figured out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was informed by Mr. George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of $268,537.71 with the firm.
“I've won my bet!” murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker.
“You have indeed, Mr. Robison.” Richards spoke deferentially.
“H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to—Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to sign this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs.”
This was the document:
To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the sum of $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net profit of $168,537.71.
A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order from Mr. James B. Robison.
For Richards & Tuttle: George B. Richards.
When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison said, amiably:
“If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the pleasure it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers more than double their money in one week.”
“Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account.”
“And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new, clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I told you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have given me a certificate of sanity a week ago. What?”
“Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent—”
“All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent.” Mr. Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered enough to blush.
“Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand—” The broker paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a profitable customer. He did not wish commissions to stop.
Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn to speak, said:
“It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in life. Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of the first chapter of a big, black book—Mystery!”
“Yes,” murmured the dazed broker.
Robison continued, cheerfully: “My dear Mr. Richards, by all means don't understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James Burnett Robison.” With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five thousand dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers.
A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, which he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a check for his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and lachrymosely hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close the account, Mr. Robison answered, very impressively:
“My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the state tax. Good day, sir!” And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just afterward and wondered, without shaking hands.