Every Man for Himself

by Herbert Joseph Moorhouse

"Please say nothing about my connection with Podmore, Blatch. It was an unavoidable unpleasantness which is now over. Some day soon when I have more time I'll drop in and give you all the details."

Miss Margaret Williams was nowhere about, he noted, as he took his departure.

Kendrick caught the next ferry across the bay to the Island and walked in on his uncle's housekeeper. He found that once more he had the big summer residence to himself, that his uncle had taken a flying trip to New York. That meant that his aunt would be alone in the summer cottage at Sparrow Lake, except for the servants, and he decided suddenly to run up and see her that very evening. After glancing through a slight accumulation of mail he changed to outing flannels and hied to the boathouse for an hour's run in the launch—out through the Eastern Gap into the open lake, where he could cut away across miles of blue water that danced invitingly in the golden sunshine on and on to the horizon's clear rim. All alone out there with the wash of the water, the steady undertone of the engine throbbing in his ears and the cool breeze blowing through his hair, he could sort out his thoughts.

They were inclined to tangle. He had yet to plan how he would proceed to obtain the information which Ben Wade wanted in regard to J. C. Nickleby. The railroad executive had traced certain consignments of cheap whisky which had been run through to construction camps in the northern part of the province and had his own suspicions as to the source from which the bootleggers were obtaining funds. If the luck which had attended Phil's first efforts to learn what Podmore was planning held good, it ought not to be difficult; but there would be no Blatch Ferguson to help him out in a task which would call for the utmost circumspection.

Podmore could be dismissed as of the brood of Esau, willing to sell to the highest bidder anybody's birthright upon which he could lay hands. Ferguson's confident assurance that the stolen campaign fund contribution,—if that was what it had been intended to be,—implicated the Government in no way, could be accepted without question. Had it been otherwise, Ferguson would have been galvanized to action of some sort. At any rate, the sudden disappearance of the money before it reached its destination eliminated it so far as the Government was concerned.

This much was clear to Kendrick. Beyond wondering greatly how such a substantial sum as fifty thousand dollars could drop from sight mysteriously without creating general excitement, he dismissed the matter as outside his immediate concern. If the actual money had been in Wade's possession, as Podmore had been led to believe, Phil would have been more perplexed about it; even Wade's evident inside knowledge of the transaction was sufficiently mystifying. That probably was part of the "puzzle" which would be divulged in due course. Kendrick knew that in the modern business world with its constant clashes between powerful financial interests there were many undercurrents which a young man fresh from college could not hope to gauge. He was content, therefore, to accept Wade's superior judgment without question, to follow instructions faithfully, secure in the knowledge that Benjamin Wade was a man of the highest integrity.

The railroad president had gone on to Montreal and beyond delivery of a letter to Nathaniel Lawson and the obtaining of an answer to it, his final instructions to his new secretary had been simple.

"If you can get Nat Lawson to tell you his story, Phil, you'll spend one interesting evening," he had suggested. "Good business for you to know all about the Interprovincial. Use your own judgment and good luck to you."

There was no hurry about calling on Lawson; it could wait till he got back from this rush visit to Sparrow Lake. But what about this girl in Ferguson's office? What a pippin! Phil was unable to decide whether she had been listening at the keyhole because she had gone there for that very purpose or whether he had surprised her merely taking advantage of accidental opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. She interested him greatly—probably because she was so pretty and had rebuffed him so unmistakably.

He amused himself by absurd speculations about her. If she did have a definite object in spying on Ferguson, the solitaire diamond on her engagement finger might be a bluff; her cheap manner, so out of keeping with refinement of feature and dress,—that might be faked likewise. If she were one of these female detectives you read about, who had hired her? Was she in the pay of Nickleby? If she were, it was Kendrick's duty to keep an eye on her, wasn't it? And she was a tonic for any eye!