CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SYNDICATE IN LIQUIDATION.
The crisis has arrived. On the bulletins in front of the leading newspaper offices in New York crowds congregate. Men discuss the startling tidings that come from all points of the compass and ask themselves what the next report will be. Golding's death is the forerunner of a long list of fatalities.
JAVELIN BULLETIN.
United States Senator Warwick, of California, was assassinated at his villa in San Diego.
The murderer, after shooting the Senator, turned the smoking pistol upon himself and died with his victim.
This bulletin is posted on the board in front of the Javelin office.
"What's happening?" asks one of the crowd of the man at his side. "Is this a wholesale butchery planned by Anarchists, or is it a plot of the Mafia?"
"God only knows," is the reply.
And to the thousands who stand waiting with breathless excitement for the next announcement the inability to locate the source of the outburst of violence is quite as complete as this man's. They realize that a series of appalling crimes has been committed; yet none can ascribe the least pretext for them.
The name of one after another of the leading magnates of the land is posted as the victim of a simultaneous homicide, and the notion that it is the work of anarchists begins to prevail.
JAVELIN BULLETIN.
Robert Drew, the Sugar King, while riding in Central Park, was stabbed to death by an assassin.
The man jumped into his carriage as it was descending the hill leading to the One Hundred and Tenth Street entrance at Seventh Avenue.
No sooner had the dagger been buried in the heart of Mr. Drew than the fanatic withdrew it and plunged it into his own heart.
The murderer fell forward and
died even before his victim.
When this notice is displayed it causes a shudder to run through the crowd. This is the first of the deaths to be inflicted in New York.
With the apprehension of men who feel that danger is imminent, the crowd in front of the bulletin shifts uneasily. There is the thought in all minds that some awful calamity may come upon them as they stand there. Then, too, there is the thought that they may not be safe elsewhere. In such a state of mind men become susceptible to emotion. A word can then sway a multitude.
From five o'clock, when the first bulletin appeared, until the announcement of the killing of Mr. Drew, a period of two hours and a half, the list has grown to frightful proportions.
From Chicago comes the report that Tingwell Fang, the Beef King, has been killed in his private office by the explosion of a dynamite bomb or some other infernal machine brought there by a man who for weeks had been transacting important business with Mr. Fang. The explosion entirely demolished the office, and when the police succeeded in getting at the bodies it was found that the bomb-thrower had paid for his deed with his life.
In a bundle of papers which the man left in the outer office a note is found which gives his address as the Palmer House. At his room in the hotel a card is found addressed to the public: It read as follows:
I have fulfilled my oath; my self-destruction is proof that I am sincere in the belief that I have acted for the good of mankind.
BENTON S. MARVIN.
Almost as soon as the papers are on the street announcing the tragedy, another message comes from Chicago telling of the strange death of Senator Gold. His body and that of a man who had been with him at the Auditorium are found in the Senator's room. Death has been caused by an unknown agency. There are no signs of violence on either. The money and jewelry of both are undisturbed. Neither man appears to have been the victim of the other's hand, for the apparel of each is unruffled. One is found lying on the floor near the window; the other is found stretched across the table in the room.
Following these early bulletins come others from Philadelphia, St. Louis
and Boston, successively announcing the mysterious deaths of President
Vosbeck of the National Transportation Trust, Captain Blood of the St.
Louis Steamship Association, and of ex-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elias
M. Turner of Massachusetts.
"President Vosbeck met his death while on a tour of inspection in the new power house of his company in the western part of the city. With him were his private secretary and a stranger from New York whom he was taking on a tour of inspection. The secretary was sent to find the superintendent of the power house. He returned to find both President Vosbeck and the stranger in the throes of death on the floor near the great dynamo. In the stranger's hand a cane was clutched. This cane was one of those that are commonly made at penitentiaries. It was of leather rings strung on a steel rod."
The above dispatch is spread on the bulletin board, followed by these details:
"As soon as the hospital surgeons and the electrical experts arrived they decided that the cane must have come in contact with the deadly current; and that at that instant Steel and the stranger were standing upon the metal flooring which made a perfect conductor." The death of Captain Blood was even more astounding than that of President Vosbeck.
"In company with the newly appointed Superintendent of the grain elevators, of which the Captain had a monopoly, he descended into the hold of the steamboat that was taking on a cargo of wheat at the Big Three Elevator. The two men were hardly below deck when, by some inexplicable error the engineer received the signal to open the shoot. An avalanche of golden grain rushed upon the two captives. There was a cry of dismay from the hold, and then only the sound of the rushing stream of grain.
"The engine was reversed and the bucket chain began to take up the grain; but it was too late. When the bodies of the men were reached they were contorted in the agony of death. Suffocation had come as a tardy relief to them."
This bulletin adds to the excitement of the crowd. While the people are reading the extras that tell of the series of strange deaths of men of such national importance as Vosbeck and Captain Blood, the news comes from Boston that a double murder has been committed in Brookline, a suburb of that city.
Ex-Chief Justice Turner of the United States Supreme Court and a friend who was visiting him at his country house, were set upon by highwaymen as they were strolling through a strip of woodland, and had been hanged to trees. It was not known how much money the road agents got. The Justice had never been in the habit of carrying any large sums. As to what money Mr. Burton, his friend, might have had on his person, there was no way of ascertaining.
"The Supreme Court, the Senate, and three of the leading-men in the country, this is pretty big game," remarks one of the crowd.
"It will be well if it ends there," says another.
"This will cause 'Industrials' to take a slump," observes a stout, sleek, well dressed man.
"Yes," replies a voice at his elbow, "and it may be that a slump of the market is at the bottom of most of this. I wouldn't trust these brokers. They'd kill a regiment to get a flurry on the market if they were short."
The stout man, who happens to be a stock broker, says no more.
"Get yer extra, all about six millionaires killed; get yer extra!" cry the newsboys.
"Make it seven," shouts a coarse voice from the very heart of the mass of humanity.
And seven it is to be.
The bulletin is being cleared for a fresh notice.
"Bet you it's a Banker this time," a book-keeper, who had deserted his desk to get the latest news, says jestingly.
"Ah, it'll be a dead shoemaker next," laughingly exclaims a messenger boy who has heard the book-keeper's remark.
By a strange coincidence the name that appears the following instant is that of Henry Hide, the head of the leather Trust. The ribald jest of the boy proves to be all too true.