"Mr. Merkle," she cried.
"Hello! Yes. Is that you?" came Merkle's steady voice.
"Come quick—quick."
"What's wrong?" he demanded, with a sharp change of tone. "Has Bob—?"
"No, no. It's Mr. Hammon. He's down-stairs with—Lilas, and he's hurt—shot. I—I'm frightened."
She turned to find Bob and Jim staring at her.
"Come," she gasped. "I think he's—dying."
She led the way swiftly, and they followed.
CHAPTER XV
Merkle found his chauffeur just closing the garage door, and three minutes later his car was sweeping westward through the Park like the shadow of some flying bird. The vagueness, the brevity of the message that had come to him out of the night made it terribly alarming. Hammon of all men! And at this time! Merkle's mind leaped to the consequences of the catastrophe, if catastrophe it proved. He remembered the issues raised by the sudden death of another associate—also a man of standing and the head of a great industrial combination—and the avalanche of misfortune that it had started. In that case death had been attributed to apoplexy, but when the truth leaked out it had created a terrible scandal. Fortunately, that man's business affairs had been well ordered, and, although his family had been ruined, his institutions had managed to survive the blow. But Jarvis Hammon's financial interests were in no condition to withstand a shock; for a long time many of them had been under fire. He had committed his associates to a program of commercial expansion, never too secure even under favorable conditions, and one, moreover, which had provoked a tremendous assault from rival steel manufacturers. Now, with Hammon himself stricken at the crisis of the struggle, there was no telling what results might follow.