Winifred Walcott was placing orders—two of them—one to Dexter, the other to Merrill & Moore. They were large orders, too, a great deal larger than the selling order which had last bombarded the market. I glanced at Kennedy. Not for a moment did he betray the anxiety I know he now felt. For the orders must have involved a large part of Miss Walcott’s own private fortune.
In his abstraction Kennedy had forgotten to stop the telescribe and I heard over it another voice that sounded like Burke’s.
“Oh, say,” he announced. “I’ve got a clue on that store-room in the cellar. I—”
“Never mind now, Burke,” I heard Kennedy answer over the telescribe. “That will keep. Just now there isn’t a minute to spare.”
I heard no more, for Kennedy realized what he was doing and shut the reproducer off, pulling off the recording cylinder.
Would Miss Walcott’s order be enough to turn the scale? The stock was down. Her money would purchase more shares than before. If it did and the stock rose, she stood to win. If it went lower she might lose all.
I jumped to the window again.
The news of the order, two orders, in fact, and large ones, came like a bombshell on the overwrought market. Was the supporting power of Maddox unlimited? One could feel the air tingle with the question. I saw some speculators hold a hasty conference. Though I did not know it at the time, they decided that an interest that could weather such an assault could weather anything, that some one had been buying all the way down, to boost back the stock far above the old high mark. They wanted to share in the upward turn, and were ready to take a gambler’s chance. Others caught the spirit, for if the Curb is anything it is a driven herd.
Slowly the stock began to climb. The speculative public were in it now. Selling orders almost fell off. Up jumped the price.
Kennedy drew a long breath as he pulled a Westport time-table from his pocket, to cover his revulsion of feeling.