Blagden took the book and scanned the entries with care. Here was fifty Reading bought at ninety-three and sold at ninety-eight; and here one hundred bales of May cotton sold at eighteen, fifty-six, and bought in at seventeen, fifty-two. A little further on were ten thousand bushels of December wheat bought at a dollar, fifty-four and closed out at a dollar, fifty-seven. Sometimes the gains were large, sometimes small, but invariably, as she had claimed, each transaction showed a profit. Blagden gazed, fascinated.
"Now," she said, "isn't it wonderful?"
"Wonderful," he echoed. "It's more than that. It's a miracle. If I had met you six months ago, where would I be to-day? I'd be rolling in it; I'd be worth a million."
Her face was as covetous as his. "You've been in the market for years," she said. "Haven't you any way of finding out?"
"I don't know," he answered slowly. "Did you tell me in the café you had a clew?"
She hesitated. "It sounds rather ridiculous," she answered, "but do you think it's possible that the time of day can have anything to do with the strength or weakness of stocks?"
He looked disappointed. "Oh, I've heard that talk down town," he responded. "There are as many theories of speculation as there are speculators. Everyone agrees that there's manipulation--flagrant manipulation--though of course this is indignantly denied by everybody connected with the Exchange. But how this manipulation is managed, no two men agree. I've heard what you hint at, that the future course of stocks is determined by their artificial strength or weakness at certain hours of the day; two o'clock, some people think is the significant time. Personally I never believed in it at all. Why do you ask?"
"Because," she answered, "when he stands here by the tickers, he is continually looking at his watch. I am not supposed to know this; in fact, between ten and three I am excluded from this room; but I have devised means of watching, and that is the peculiarity I have noticed; that, and the jotting down in his notebook of memoranda which he apparently copies from the tape."
Blagden looked puzzled. "I should be very slow," he said, "to believe anything of the kind. And I should think you could manage this affair without my aid. Considering your relations with this man, considering your very obvious attractions, I should think the stage was all set for a modern version of Merlin and Vivien."
She smiled a trifle bitterly. "I will confess to you," she answered, "that the same thing occurred to me. In fact, I attempted it; and failed utterly. Compared with this--" she indicated the tickers--"I am the proverbial dust beneath his feet."