upstairs.
But the schemer well knew that Hathorn was a leading figure in the downtown mêlée where “Sugar” had been steadily hammered down from “seventy” to “fifty” under tremendous sales. Every conceivable disaster had been suddenly “materialized” around the standard of the hitherto strongly upheld monopoly.
It was on Friday, at one o’clock, that Vreeland, awestruck, added up his scheduled statement of sales, on ten-day delivery terms. It amounted to nearly twenty thousand shares, and the total of the transactions astounded him.
He had just stolen in to report the last order to Alida Hathorn, a sale of a thousand shares, and she had gleefully whispered, “You have already handled twenty, but I have turned forty thousand shares, and I’ve now reached my limit. If it goes down ten dollars more, we can cover all our contracts and clear nearly a half million dollars.”
Vreeland’s eyes opened in wonder, as he saw the file of waiting messengers in her gallery, and a cipher book at her side. He fled away in silence.
At the door of his room, he was seized by Mary Kelly, her white hands trembling. “She is there now at the instrument, calling you—hasten.”
Bold, intrigant, as he was, Vreeland paled, and the blood left his heart as he listened to Elaine Willoughby’s last orders. It was a most momentous message. “Telegraph instantly down over private wire, to Cashier Mineralogical Bank. For my order, buy in, at once—on this board—forty thousand shares of Sugar in lots of one to five thousand shares. Do not leave the instrument for one moment, till you report the execution back to me. Have them telegraph to you the buying rate of each lot and report when all is bought in. Then I will come to the Waldorf and send over for you.
“I will sign the checks myself there at the hotel. Keep the messengers there in your room with the stocks. I have suite No. 700 in the hotel.”
Mary Kelly’s flying fingers had recorded the momentous message in shorthand as it fell from Hathorn’s pallid lips, and, her fingers then pressed the telegraph key with lightning rapidity. Vreeland was dazed. “My God, this is ruin for her,” he whispered. It was of the Lady of the Red Rose he spoke.
“You must sit here, sir, and record for me,” cried the girl. “They are holding me on the wire.” The agony of hell was in the heart of the entrapped scoundrel.