CHAPTER II—Going to Headquarters
Halloran had not yet exhausted his resources in getting at the facts behind the corn deal. There was one person who probably could, if he would, carry the story further, and that was Jimmie McGinnis. And so Halloran decided to run down to Chicago.
The Captain, when he heard of it, came to see him. “Harry Crosman says you're going down to the city, Mr. Halloran.”
“Yes; I shall take the night train.”
“When I told Jennie about it she wondered if you'd be going anywhere near Lizzie's place.”
“I can, easily enough.”
“Jennie, you see, has been sort of looking for some word from her this week, and there ain't none come yet, and would you mind taking along a little bundle for Lizzie, and maybe a note?”
“Not a bit. You'll have them here before supper time, won't you?”
“Yes; surely.”
And so it fell out that Halloran boarded the train that night with the bundle under his arm.
His trip was to be as short as he could make it, for he did not like to be away at this time. Full instructions were left with his assistant; and his post as amateur fire marshal was assigned to the Captain during his absence.
Jimmie, it seemed, had been with the Le Ducs until the change. Where to find him now was a question, or it would have been if his eye had not alighted on the name “Elmer Le Duc” in the evening paper, among the attractions advertised by a Clark Street vaudeville theatre. He reached Chicago in the morning, and in the afternoon dropped around to the theatre. From the display of the name in five-inch letters on the bill-boards of a downtown continuous performance it was to be inferred that Jimmie was getting on in the world. His position on the programme, too—toward three o'clock—and the little burst of applause that followed the appearance of his name on the announcement card at the side of the stage, aided the impression. And finally, when the familiar wizen-faced, thin-legged boy, as undersized as ever, appeared, shouted out the preliminary song of his specialty, and fell into a long and wonderfully intricate dance, there was no doubting he had popped into favour. When he had disappeared, after the third recall, and the next turn was announced, Halloran slipped out and strolled a few steps up the alley that led to the stage-door.
A quarter of an hour later a large, coarse-featured young woman, wearing a rakish French costume, came out into the alley; and behind her, barely reaching to her shoulder, in the unfamiliar get-up of a light suit, a wide-brimmed pearl-gray hat, tan shoes, and a bamboo stick, appeared Jimmie. They started to walk off together, but at Halloran's hail the young man turned.
“How are you,” he said with a nod, somewhat as if their last meeting had been but a few hours earlier. “Want to speak to me?”
At Halloran's affirmative, he left the woman, who stared at Halloran as she waited.
“Been to the show?” asked Jimmie. “Got 'em cold, ain't I? I always told Le Duc I could do it the minute I got a chance at a big house.”
“I've been looking for you, Jimmie. Won't you have dinner with me to-night at the Auditorium?”
“Dinner, eh? What time?”
“Half-past six.”
“I suppose so. You see I was goin' with Jane—that's Jane Scott, you know; greatest character singer and dancer on the stage. We're goin' to be married next week, and I'm sorter supposed to hang around her most of the time. But I guess I can make it. Anythin' doin'?”
“Nothing very much. I'll look for you, then, at half-past six, in the main office.”
The dinner hour had come before Halloran could stop wondering over the idea of Jimmie McGinnis marrying. When they were seated together at a quiet table he spoke of it.
“So you're going to be married, Jimmie?”
“Yes; sure. But say, they ain't callin' me that no more. I'm Elmer Le Duc now, you know.”
“Aren't you starting in rather young?”
“Oh, no, not for a man in the profession. You see, Jane's husband———”
“Her husband!”
“Yes. He's a skate, you see—lushes. He's a fool, too, 'cause Jane's kind-hearted, and she'd a-gone right on supportin' him if he'd a-treated her half decent. She can haul in her hundred and twenty-five every week in the year—regular gold-mine. And a man that ain't got head enough to hold on to a thing like that 'ad better drop off. We've been talkin' it over, Jane an' me, ever since I made my hit. You see, she's got a two-part skit that calls for a small man, smaller'n her, a part I can walk right into; an' I thought it over an' told her I'd marry her an' manage the business. She's told me since, she knew the minute she struck me that I was her man. It's a good thing for both of us, you see. We can clear up two hundred a week easy, and our expenses won't be near so much. I told her I'd put up the cash for her divorce. It's such a sure case that it ain't costin' a great lot. Of course, I don't need to marry her, but the savin' in doublin' up on hotel an' sleeper bills 'll more'n pay for the divorce the first year.”
Halloran looked at Jimmie, shook his head, and then smiled in spite of himself. And Jimmie had to grin a little, too.
It had been a question how to open the next subject. Halloran knew that, wherever there was a choice of ways to an end, one open and direct, the other tortuous and subterranean, Jimmie's mind would instinctively seek the latter. He thought he had better slip easily from the one subject to the other; for if the boy were to suspect him of any strong desire to inform himself concerning Le Duc he would most likely draw back, from sheer perversity, into his shell.
“You say you're known as Le Duc now? Didn't you travel with them for awhile?”
“Yes; but it wouldn't go. Too much madam there. Let me tell you this, Mr. Halloran. Don't you ever go into partnership with a man and his wife. It's hell on wheels.”
“They didn't get on well, then?”
“No; the only payin' thing in the combination was the name. Le Duc's one of the best names in the profession, an' he's been more'n square about lettin' me go on an' use it.”
“I saw them a little while ago at their hotel. He seems to have struck a good thing now.”
“Yes, they say he's a big man on the Board.”
“How did he ever get into it? There must be somebody behind him.”
Jimmie fingered his fork and looked up with an expressionless face. “Is they?” he asked.
Halloran tried again. “I don't know, but I'm inclined to think there's more in it than the papers say.”
Jimmie, for some reason, chose to give no information whatever on this question. And Halloran had the questionable pleasure of bidding him good-evening in the consciousness that he was no nearer what he wanted to know than he had been in Wauchung. The next step was a matter of careful thinking; he was not even sure that there could be a next step. Meantime, he had an errand at the Le Ducs', and as it was not yet eight o'clock he decided to run up there.
The great event had taken place in the Le Duc household. And when Halloran was shown into the apartment, he found a happy father in his shirt-sleeves dancing about a small white bundle on the sofa, a beaming mother also in dishabille, and a simpering nurse-maid. Apples was cordial, merry, expansive; he was delighted to see his old friend Halloran—fairly dragged him in. Good stories and playful allusions were continually rising in his mind and finding expression. He was boisterously demonstrative, and given to squeezing his wife's hand or slipping his arm around her as his tongue rattled along.
Halloran delivered his message and his bundle, and finally, when he had been made to say all that there is to be said about some other man's infant, the mother and nurse took it away and left the two men to smoke and chat.
After a time there came a pause. And then an idea that had been floating in Halloran's mind since his disappointment with Jimmie took sudden form.
“How do you like working with Bigelow?” he asked, without the slightest change of expression, knocking the ash off his cigar as he spoke. And Apples took the bait.
“First rate. He's a driver, but he's got a great head on him.”
“Yes, I know. I used to work for him myself, out in Evanston. I don't believe he has ever done much on the Board before this deal.”
“No, I don't think he has.” A peculiar expression was coming into Le Due's face. “Who told you about it?” he asked.
“Oh, I've always known more or less of his movements. He was hit rather hard in Kentucky Coal a little while back, but I suppose this corner will more than square that, if it goes through.”
Le Duc smiled. “Don't you worry about that. I guess that coal business is nothing he can't stand. A momentary change of opinion doesn't alter the fact that there's just as much coal there as there ever was.”
“I suppose there is—just as much.”
Le Duc was looking not quite comfortable. “Of course,” he began, “there are times with every man whose interests are spread out widely——” But this wouldn't do. He was blundering deeper and deeper into some sort of a trap, and not wholly grasping the situation, he decided to keep still.
Halloran had learned enough. His trip to Chicago was not to be a failure, after all. He had learned so much, in fact, that when he was back in his room at the hotel and could sit down and think it all over, there seemed to be no reason for delay in turning his information to account. Over and over again that night he considered his case: he tested it from every point of view to assure himself of its soundness; and in the morning, instead of heading for Wauchung, he wired Crosman that he would return by way of the lumbering town of Corrigan, the seat of the Corrigan mills, in the upper peninsula. The Corrigans were among the largest owners in the “combine”; and if they were as tired of losing money as he believed, they would doubtless be glad to hear what he had to say.
It was an eight-hour ride from Chicago to Corrigan, and evening was so near when he arrived that he went directly to his hotel for some dinner, and made arrangements by telephone to see the younger Mr. Corrigan at his home in the evening.
“I don't know that we have ever met, Mr. Corrigan,” Halloran said, when the two men were closeted. “I am with Higginson & Company, of Wauchung. Your company and ours have not agreed, so far, in our attitude toward G. Hyde Bigelow. Mr. Higginson refused his offers at the start because we had reason to distrust him. We know now that we were right.”
Corrigan looked at him with some surprise. “If you have any charges to make against Mr. Bigelow you should see him, not me.”
“I have no charges, Mr. Corrigan, but I rather think you have. I've come here to lay them before you and leave you free to push them or not, as you choose. As I understand it, when this combination was organized, Mr. Bigelow was generally thought to be a responsible man. We didn't believe it, so we stood out rather than have him direct our business. Since that time he has got into such difficulties with his Kentucky investments that in order to raise money he has taken to speculating heavily on the Board of Trade. He is operating the big corn deal through the man named Le Duc.”
“You'll excuse me, sir, but I don't see———”
He paused, and Halloran went on: “You understand, Mr. Corrigan, that our position is what it was at the start—we are against this combination. And if I didn't believe that you are going to be against it, too, I shouldn't be here. I think you'll agree with me that if what I say is tme, Mr. Bigelow is not a man to trust.”
“If it is tme———”
“And there is a way to prove it. I suggest that at the meeting, which comes, I believe, next month, you lay these charges before Mr. Bigelow, without warning, and give him a chance to explain. You are at liberty to say that I gave you the information.”
This was all he had come to say, and he was so sure of its effect that he was willing to leave it and give the seed time to grow. But Corrigan was aroused.
“This—this amounts to saying that Bigelow is secretly plunging on the Board.”
“It certainly does.”
“And this Le Duc, who is he?”
“He's a cheap actor who married Bigelow's daughter.”
“His daughter! His oldest child is not a dozen years old.”
“By his present wife, yes. But he's been married before.”
“I'll think this over, Mr. Halloran; I'll think it over.”
Halloran rose. “I came up here from Chicago to tell you that Bigelow is unsound. The sooner everybody connected with the Michigan lumber business finds it out the better for the business. Good-night.”
“Good-night, sir.”