“It’s a lie,” said Jordan, sullenly. “He transferred the right to me. You have seen the paper.”
“A mere forgery,” declared Mr. Williams. “Long before I came to Bingham, to find the man who could make such wonderful steel, you had opened the sealed envelope and prepared the forged transfer of all rights to yourself. I was very fully deceived, at that time; and although you exacted from me excessive royalties for the use of the process, I made a contract with you in good faith and built this establishment.”
“Well, you have made a fortune out of it,” retorted Jordan, savagely. “Why are you now hounding me, who gave you the opportunity to make millions?”
“Because you are an unprincipled scoundrel, sir! Because you have never been entitled to one dollar of the money I have paid you. The money belonged to the family of John Carden, or to John Carden himself.”
“The Carden family has not suffered,” answered the man, moving uneasily in his seat. “I’ve boarded with them, and always helped support them.”
The doctor uttered an exclamation that was like a roar, and clinching his fists half started to rise from his chair. But Mr. Williams restrained him with a look, and motioned him to have patience.
“Let us continue the story,” he said, “for its appalling details are not half told. With John Carden well out of the way it was necessary he should not return to life to confound his destroyer. This required all of Jordan’s ingenuity. For Carden not only wrote to him, when he had arrived in England, but he also wrote to his wife, and Jordan had to watch the mails carefully in order to intercept these letters. If one had reached Mrs. Carden the conspiracy would have been foiled. It was a bold game, and I marvel even now that it succeeded. Carden found friends in Birmingham almost at once, who saw the value of his process and were eager to promote the manufacture of the new steel. The Atlas Steel Company was formed, with Carden a large stock-holder, and soon he had sufficient means to send for his wife and family. I am almost sure that Jordan forged letters from Mrs. Carden to her husband about that time, purporting to be answers to those she received, for in no other way could his suspicions have been lulled. But the proofs of this are missing. I know, however, that when Carden forwarded to Jordan the money to enable his family to proceed to England, that Jordan kept the money for his own uses, making various excuses to his friend to account for the delay of the family in starting.
“His object in this was to work upon the husband the same horrible plot that had succeeded in ruining the life of the wife. He was watching the newspapers again.”
Jordan listened with his bald head thrust eagerly forward. His face was white and terrified.
“After several months the opportunity came, for the devil seems to favor his servants at times. The Italian steamer Victor Chalfante went down in mid-ocean, in a terrible storm, and Jordan, on receipt of the news, cabled John Carden that his family was on board.