Macgowan, with superb craft and diabolical certainty, had counted on that very thing, of course; had delivered blow upon blow, each following close upon the quivering impact of the other; had in fact brought his whole campaign of treachery to a culmination, had won everything, almost before Armstrong so much as knew himself in danger. Oh, clever, infernally clever, Macgowan! How cunningly he had planned, knowing that Armstrong would be stunned, rendered incapable of fighting, at a loss to do anything! It was the voting trust, of course, which had served as the final weapon—
Armstrong started suddenly. How far back did this duplicity extend? How long had Macgowan been concerting his treachery around his control of the voting trust?
This thought electrified him, sent his brain reaching out at last. The terrible conviction grew upon him that he had been duped from the start, tricked and played as a pawn from the very outset of his career in New York! All this while, he had been building up a business system in order that Macgowan, sitting back and watching, might grab it when the time came.
And the time had come. Consolidated had slipped from his grasp. Macgowan had set that brain of his to making his own fortune.
Armstrong sat staring before him, fingers twisting and gripping, his face seamed with drawn lines. All the cheerful, genial youth of him was crying out in agony of its hurt from a friend's hand; all the man of him was wrenched by the realization that another would reap where he had sowed, that he was in a moment robbed and despoiled of an institution to which he had dedicated his future life. The same stern self-repression which that morning had kept him from gripping Macgowan by the throat, now held him motionless, his body relaxed, his brain at work.
Another man would have cursed. Reese Armstrong thought.
One thing after another—petty and hitherto unregarded details uprose before his mind's eye in damning surety. How Macgowan had done this, had done that; how, for example, that voting trust had been renewed. Little things, yet all combining to show that Macgowan had planned his coup long ago. His confidence in Armstrong had been sincere; he had believed that Consolidated would succeed. Therefore he had laid his schemes, looking to the time when he might seize Consolidated.
And now he had gripped his prey. But—why?
That pretended distrust of Findlater and the other men! Armstrong flinched at the recollection. Even now, Macgowan and Findlater were chortling together over their easy conquest. All the time they had been playing a deep and crafty game, those two.
But—to what end?