“Moddridge!” sniffed Bolton, contemptuously. “Pooh! That’s the least of our worries. Moddridge simply won’t do anything—won’t have courage enough, with Delavan out of the way. Moddridge is a feeble-minded idiot of finance.”
“But there are other people who stand to lose heavily through a drop in P. & Y.,” urged Ellis. “Some of them have money enough to hire an army of detectives and spies. If Delavan is found before P. & Y. touches bottom price in the market your profits will be much smaller.”
“I know it,” nodded Bolton. “But Delavan simply isn’t going to be found, until I’ve got enough P. & Y. stock at my own figures. Then he can come back and boost the stock up again—meaning millions in profits for Justin Bolton!”
“If you’re absolutely sure he won’t be found before our plans go through successfully——” hesitated Ellis.
“Found?” echoed Bolton, with a rough laugh. “Not until I want it, Ellis. See here, this is what I am going to do with Delavan, to-night.”
Some whispered words followed.
“Get him out on the ocean?” cried Ellis, a note of delight in his voice. “And keep him out there for days, a close prisoner? Good! Nothing better can be done, if it isn’t traced back to you.”
“Oh, it won’t be,” declared Justin Bolton, with a grunt of conviction. “Ellis, I’m planning this all too deeply. I couldn’t get in on that Steel business. I don’t know what tips Delavan’s agent got from Gordon, and I don’t know what Delavan and Moddridge started to do in that direction. But when I heard that both had pledged their P. & Y. stock with the bankers I saw at once how to drive the bankers into selling the pledged P. & Y. stock to save themselves. And others will sell. There’ll be a panic in Wall Street to-morrow. We’ll pick up the P. & Y. for song-prices. Delavan’s final return will show the folly of the scare. P. & Y. will then go up again, and I’ll clear the millions I want. Ellis, you and Rexford won’t be poor men any more after that!”
Inch by inch Tom Halstead had continued to creep forward. He wanted to get a good look at Justin Bolton. He wanted, if possible, to find some way of “catching on behind” the touring car when it rolled away, for in that manner, he believed, he could find his way direct to imprisoned Francis Delavan.
Justin Bolton sat alone on the front seat of the machine, Ellis stood in the roadway, two feet off. Beside Bolton dozed an ugly-looking bull-dog.