CHAPTER VII
February drew on apace, arrived, began to spend its length.
Armstrong was healthily busy, up to his ears in work; with each day the fight proved more drawn-out. The campaign against Findlater and Macgowan swept along steadily. The financial press was full of it, even the newspapers were airing the affair; and Macgowan, beyond flat denials of all the charges, was keeping quiet.
His quiet was ominous.
The Armstrong Company was now completely reorganized as a financial service corporation, restricted to New York and seaboard cities. For the moment, Armstrong was forced to forget Macgowan and give his energies to putting the Armstrong Company on its feet, able to get along under Wren's management. As soon as counter blows began to smash home he would have to sweep aside all else; so, for the present, he worked over the Armstrong Company, flinging himself into it with driving energy. In one of its offices was domiciled the Stockholders' Protective Association, under its committee of three.
With every day that passed, Armstrong found himself more impressed with Mansfield's advice as to this committee. Judge Holcomb had entered the fight with the ardor of a boy; a jurist of the highest integrity, a financier intimately associated with men in high places, he was invaluable. So, too, was Bruton—a man whom Macgowan could not possibly attack on any grounds. As for Rupert Sessions, a fiery but scholarly publicist and lecturer—Armstrong could not but feel sufficiently grateful for the chance which had flung such a man to his support.
Sessions had outlined a campaign for the month of March which would reach every investor. His broadside letters were already causing a sensation. It was as a direct result of one of these letters, that Armstrong was one afternoon hastily summoned to a conference with the committee. He found them gravely discussing a telegram which had just arrived from Mansfield in Albany.
"Armstrong," said Judge Holcomb, with a grim smile, "you recall that last letter Session sent out?"
"Yes." Armstrong chuckled at the memory. "About the National Reduction Company which Consolidated has undertaken to finance. You certainly called a spade a spade, Sessions! And right, too; this private graft of Findlater's is bound to be a failure, so far as the stockholders are concerned."
"Findlater will file suit to-morrow for a hundred thousand in damages, also asking punitive damages. Libel."
Armstrong grunted sarcastically.
"Let him file! It's all he can do to save his face, judge. I'll guarantee to pay all the damages he'll ever collect, too."
"Oh, the suit will never go to trial." Sessions took up a telegram. "But see here, Armstrong! This is what we called you in for. We'll have bad news to send out next week."
Armstrong took the message and read it.
The attorney general of the state had refused to institute suit for removal of Findlater and Macgowan. At the hearing, a certain lawyer famed for his political affiliations—not named in the telegram—had obtained the dismissal of the action, on the technical ground that Consolidated Securities had been organized under the laws of South Dakota; and therefore being a foreign corporation, was not amenable to the New York jurisdiction.
"Check," said Armstrong quietly, giving no sign of his disappointment. "Well, we were warned that we were up against politics! You can make capital of this, Sessions. The dismissal is purely technical and does not clear Macgowan. This simply saves them from producing the books—play up their refusal to stand investigation! They're not vindicated by this; they're merely relieved."
While still speaking, he was summoned to the telephone. He sat down at a desk near by.
"Armstrong? Robert Dorns on the wire. Say, Findlater and Macgowan have quarreled; it don't amount to much, but it's a symptom. Do you know a fellow over there named Henderson?"
"Yes. Assistant treasurer of Consolidated. A good man, too. What about him?"
"I think he'd like to quit his job. Suppose we make him an offer if he'll quit and bring his copies of records—"
"See here, Dorns, none of that!" snapped Armstrong angrily, while the committee eyed him in startled wonder. "I'll not pay out one cent of bribery for anything—and I don't think Henderson is the sort who'd take a bribe. Did he suggest that?"
"No. I thought it up all by my own little self, me lad. S'pose we pry him loose?"
"All right. In that case, I can use him here. He can give us more inside dope on Consolidated's doings than any one else. But not a cent for bribery, understand! If Henderson would take any money for coming over here, I'd not have him and I'd not trust him. We just had word from Mansfield. The suit is dismissed on technical grounds."
"Political, you mean. All right. So long."
Armstrong swung around to meet the intent gaze of Judge Holcomb.
"Henderson is leaving Consolidated?"
"Dorns thinks he can be persuaded to leave."
"Then things are coming well. Henderson can give us all the details we need. Well, when do you look for an attack from Macgowan?"
"When we least expect it."
The attack came soon enough, with a savage disregard for truth. Macgowan, indeed, had perforce to disregard truth if he were to make any attack.
As secretary and treasurer, Macgowan was the real head of Consolidated Securities. This was a crafty move, for it outwardly relegated Macgowan to the background and left Findlater to enjoy his prominence as president—and also to bear the brunt of attack from the Protective Association.
This arrangement had other uses, also. Macgowan's law firm or firms, for he was interested in more than one, could profit largely, while Macgowan himself drew a thousand a month for his personal services. Thus the cream of the loot fell to Macgowan. Findlater, although recompensing himself in full, had at least some idea of retaining Consolidated as a going concern. Macgowan, more shrewd and crafty, knew better—knew that some day his joy-ride must come to an end. Findlater did not take in just how far he was serving as a tool in the cunning hand of his associate.
He was only too well aware, however, of Macgowan's dictatorial manner, and resented it.
Thus, when the attack on Armstrong and the Protective Association was opened, the guns were fired by Findlater, as president of Consolidated. A full broadside was delivered; a broadside of calumny which even extended to Doctor Bruton and Rupert Sessions, but which was aimed at Armstrong. By the very audacity of its charges and vilifications it was calculated to stagger its recipients. It came in the form of a Consolidated Magazine, sent out to investors generally as a reply to the Armstrong Review the house organ of the Armstrong Company, which was at present being used by the Association committee.
Macgowan had employed writers of some talent, and under cover of Findlater's name he went the limit. Adopting a tone of dignified censure, the president set forth that the Armstrong Company had been "discharged" as the fiscal agent of Consolidated; he gave copies of the affidavits which had "caused" the postal investigation; he charged that Armstrong and his hirelings were now attacking Consolidated for the purpose of getting at its funds. In effect, the charges made by Armstrong were simply turned back on him, yet with no more evidence than truth.
The result was well calculated, however, to impress the small investor. Covert attacks were made upon the integrity of the Association committee. A special article, venomously penned, purported to set forth Armstrong's biography—a combination of actual untruths and of innuendoes which made Armstrong first laugh, then whiten with fury.
He laid the matter before Mansfield, who glanced through the articles and then smiled.
"Well? I suppose we'll file libel suits immediately?"
"Of course," said Armstrong. "But more—get an injunction against Findlater at once, to prevent his using this magazine to serve his own ends. It bears the name of Consolidated and is company property. Also, prevent his using company funds for the same purpose. If he is going to present his personal affairs to the investors, let him pay for it himself!"
"Good!" exclaimed Mansfield. "A good point! We'll do it; he can't keep us from getting that injunction. This publication appears to be a tissue of falsehood, too."
"It is, from start to finish."
"Congratulations, Mr. Armstrong! We have them badly scared, or they would never go to such lengths. This libelous matter is astounding!"
"It shows that we've scared them, all right," assented Armstrong. "Also, it shows that Macgowan is trying to discredit me and is going after proxies for the annual meeting. Mansfield, isn't there any earthly way of smashing that voting trust?"
The lawyer shook his head. "No. And I am afraid that, as we feared, Macgowan will find some way of postponing its expiration until after the meeting. That would enable him to remain in power for another year, of course."
Armstrong's lips contracted for an instant.
"Then we must get enough investors behind us to override his control. We'll do it. We have two thousand of them now enrolled in the Association, and our real campaign doesn't open until March—another week yet. You've filed suit against 'em in South Dakota?"
"Yes. Your own company is organized under the laws of that state, I believe?"
"It is; they were both organized at the same time. By the way, there's something I want to ask you about—"
Armstrong had not forgotten the information which Jimmy Wren had laid before him, that day when Wren turned up in Evansville. He now told Mansfield how the Deming Food Products Company had been taken over and reorganized. He went on to relate Wren's discovery—that Deming's directors, probably without Deming's knowledge, had sworn to a false financial condition in obtaining licenses to market their stock issue.
"Can Macgowan rake that up against us in any possible way?" he concluded. "At the time the licenses were issued, we had nothing to do with Food Products, you know."
"No; you're entirely safe there, I think," promptly declared Mansfield. "Don't let it worry you for a minute—it has nothing whatever to do with you."
There was something else, however, which in the rush of business Armstrong had quite forgotten. Upon the following Monday, the last Monday in February, he was reminded of his delinquency in abrupt and terrible fashion.
By this time the fight between Findlater and the Protective Association was not only public property but was being keenly followed by banking circles and kindred interests. Among all these there was a cynically lucid understanding of the real issue; it was no secret to them that the struggle lay between looters and honest men. Yet they looked on with a phlegmatic acuity; it was to them only another battle wherein the dreamer would probably lose to the clever fighter who knew how to hit foul and hard.
Armstrong knew this. He felt that he knew exactly how to appraise the spoken word from his bankers, his friends, his acquaintances. In this he was wrong; he was still too conscious of himself and his campaign, and it tended to give him a false view. A man is at his best only when he can forget himself. His best work is done only when his "office clothes" are forgotten.
On this eventful Monday, Armstrong was taken unawares, in a moment of self-consciousness.
He took the day off, for it was his birthday, and spent it quietly at home with Dorothy before going into the city in the evening for Lohengrin. Before a blazing log fire in the wide hearth of the living room that afternoon, he was recounting to Dorothy the prospects for the final few weeks of the campaign; he had given up hope of ousting Findlater and Macgowan before the annual meeting. Then, in the gathering dusk, a caller arrived, a stranger. Armstrong had the man shown in.
He found himself promptly served with a sheriff's attachment notice. Suit for two millions in damages—a new suit—had been filed against the Armstrong Company by Findlater, on trumped-up charges of fraud, deceit, slander. Almost at the same moment he was summoned to the telephone, to hear the furious voice of Wren. The offices, bank accounts, mail receipts, files—all were tied up by the attachment.
Further, unless Armstrong's note for ten thousand dollars, held by Consolidated, were paid in cash by noon of the following day, the security for that note would be sold, promptly at noon, at the weekly auction sales in Vesey Street.
Then Armstrong remembered the thing he had forgotten—the renewal of this loan, which had come due. Food Products had not been heard from in regard to it.
"Get in touch with Mansfield at once," he told Jimmy Wren. "The suit is only an excuse to tie us up so we can't get the cash to meet this note. They got the attachment because we're a foreign corporation, and Mansfield will get it released in a day or two. You attend to that. I'm going to have my hands full raising ten thousand in cash."
He made light of it to Dorothy, assuaged her alarm and indignation, pointed out the utter absurdity of the charges, and packed her off to dress for dinner and opera. But he remained staring into the fire, his face set in drawn lines.
Crafty Macgowan! This blow had driven home. The morning papers, hungry for news from this financial battle, would headline the filing of this suit.
With everything tied up by the attachment, it was impossible for Armstrong to raise the money necessary to meet that note. But that was not the worst of it. Macgowan did not want the ten thousand in cash; he had filed this suit, had played his cards, so that Armstrong could not possibly pay the money. What Macgowan wanted was the security, the Food Products notes for twenty-five thousand dollars! That was the stake Macgowan would win at noon to-morrow.
"He'll have his fingers hooked into Food Products," thought Armstrong bitterly. "He may try to throw the company into receivership—no telling what he'll do! And unless I show up at the auction rooms by noon, he wins."
How to get that money? His imagination pictured what would meet him as he went from bank to bank, asking for ten thousand in cash—without security! Macgowan would see to it that news of this suit and attachment filled all the morning papers. Everywhere he went, Armstrong would be faced by that news.
He would be charged publicly with fraud, branded in all eyes as a perjurer and trickster; the whole financial district would be ringing with the news. No matter how baseless the charge, it would clang against him like a death-knell. It would be dismissed soon enough, after serving its purpose; even so, lies have nine lives, and the story of the charge would go further than news of the dismissal.
"I've got to do everything between ten and twelve to-morrow," said Armstrong, turning from the fire. "I expect I'll find mighty few friends anxious to be interviewed to-morrow morning—it takes small noise to flush the bird of credit. Well, I'll go down fighting!"