Barrows felt that he was, moreover, killing two birds with one stone, as he had told Marsten he would do. There are certain high financiers who do not hesitate very much to associate with men of Barrows’ stamp when they can use them to their own profit, and it happened that one of these gentry, a man called Phelps, was one of the bitterest opponents of Dick Merriwell and Chester Arlington in their Maine lumber partnership.
Barrows, when he had learned of the deposit made by Dick, and the sight draft that he had purchased against it, had not been slow in putting two and two together. He had, therefore, when he arrived in New York, communicated with Phelps, and told him something of what was afoot.
“You can’t trap Merriwell in any such way as that,” said Phelps. “That’s the weak spot in your plan, Barrows. Merriwell will have the numbers of those notes, or be able to get them, and that will dish you at once. I don’t think you’re running much risk personally, as it is, but I’d let Merriwell alone.”
“He’s not a business man,” said Barrows scornfully. “He won’t have those numbers at all. Take that from me. What’s it worth to me to put him out of business on this deal? I should think you’d be glad to have him out of the way.”
“I would be,” said Phelps. “I’d be glad to the extent of about five thousand dollars, I think. How does that strike you?”
“Well enough,” said Barrows. “You can go ahead and figure as if he was out of it altogether. This thing will ruin his credit with that New Haven bank. They may not be able to prove anything against him, but they’ll have an awful lot of mighty healthy suspicions, and that won’t do him any good around the country when he tries to do any banking business. You can see that for yourself, without my telling you anything about it.”
“Go ahead,” said Phelps. “It’s your own funeral. If I were you, I wouldn’t go after Merriwell that particular way. He’s no easy man to lead into a trap. I expect to have things ready to give him and his partner a pretty warm reception up in the woods when they once get there, but I’m perfectly willing to have you take the job off my hands, as long as I don’t appear in it. If you succeed, I’ll pay you five thousand dollars. But you’ve got to take my word for it, with nothing to give you any hold on me. I won’t sign any agreement of any sort under the circumstances.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” said Barrows. “I think you’ll be grateful enough to come through when I deliver the goods.”
It was Foote who had taken the money to Riggs, just in time for him to effect the exchange that had given such a bad appearance to the presence of Jim Phillips in the vault. Foote did not thoroughly understand what was in the air, but he knew that there was trouble brewing for the men who had exposed him and caused his present detention in New Haven, and he was glad. Moreover, he had to do what he was told, for he knew that he was at the mercy of the two gamblers, and that his father would never forgive him if it became known that he had lost so much money at Marsten’s gambling house.
Barrows had laid his plan well, but he had made a mistake in this use of Foote. Brady’s discovery that the Yale man, who had a grudge against Dick Merriwell and Jim Phillips, was acting as a messenger for some one who had occasion to communicate with Riggs, directed his suspicions toward the little teller, and that was the worst thing that could have happened to Barrows just then.