He knew that his whole personal future now depended on executing his mistress’ behests with lightning rapidity. There was no way to warn Alida Hathorn. He dared not trust Bagley—a spy, perhaps.
One hasty sentence of explanation and he sat down at the table, beside the girl, while far away at the Circassia, Elaine Willoughby eagerly awaited the warning ring of the telephone bell. In three-quarters of an hour, Vreeland staggered to the speaking tube. “The whole order is covered,” he reported, “opening price, forty-nine; closing price, seventy-three. I will await you here.”
With a sickening heart, the would-be traitor watched Mary Kelly adding up the scheduled lots and averaging the prices.
“The whole forty thousand shares average us sixty-four dollars,” she whispered, pushing the paper over to him, as she bent over her clicking key. “There has been a terrific rise. Failures on the Street are reported. Sugar is going up with jumps. Market practically bare.”
“My God!” groaned Vreeland, as he hid his face for a few moments in his own room.
“This will be her ruin. Poor Alida. Forty thousand shares left to cover, means a loss of three-quarters of a million.”
And then his own white face stared back at him, in the glass as his trembling lips refused to frame the question: “Did Elaine know of his treachery?” For, it seemed that his sin had found him out.
He dared not even for a single moment leave the presence of the girl who was now recording each message from the cashier of the bank, announcing the departure of the agents with each lot of the stocks as bought in.
“Was it a blind pool to break and make a market?” he queried.
But, he found no time to steal away an instant from Mary Kelly’s eyes and the impassive Bagley who stood waiting to conduct him to Mrs. Willoughby at the Waldorf. “I am watched,” the cowed traitor muttered.