A thorough confidence was reestablished between the two collegians before the coming of Monday morning took Randall Clayton back to his money mill. His first impulse to give up the apartment had returned to him. He now loathed the memory of Arthur Ferris as the slimy snake in the grass; and yet he resisted his desire to shove all the traitor's traps into a storage warehouse.
"Be ruled by me, Randall," urged Jack Witherspoon, as he set out on Monday morning for his last business conferences with the New York end of his railroad employers.
"I will surely make Hugh give up the million. You shall have your three-quarters, for it would be ruin to Worthington to drag out his relations with Durham."
"Play the honest Iago. Keep your counsel. Dismiss this from you mind. Make love to some pretty girl, amuse yourself. Do anything but drink or gamble. Keep up a jolly mien. Go in to the summer pleasures a little. It will throw these two crafty ones off their guard. The weeks will soon roll around. I will cable you of my return.
"Then we will jointly descend upon this new combination of Worthington, Durham, and Ferris. But I must first be in Detroit, back in my impregnable railroad law fortress. Then, at my nod, he settles or down come the gates of Gaza on him! Remember that you have no one in your matrimonial eye. I want to win Francine Delacroix's home from these robbers. And then install the little dainty therein. I will go in and win for you!"
The college comrades had now unravelled all the past, and their
Sunday outing had after all been a jolly one. Thoroughly reassured,
Clayton had given Jack Witherspoon his whole history, and the future
campaign was laid out in all its details.
"As for these Fidelity Company men," said Jack, "you can give them the go by in only frequenting secluded places.
"As long as you avoid the public resorts of New York, they cannot reach you. But keep your eyes always open. And, remember, secrecy above all. If Hugh Worthington should divine our plan to unveil his devilment, you might be the victim of some 'strange accident!'
"Money has a long arm in these days," ominously said the lawyer, "and, it can strike with remorseless power. So, keep on here, but look out for yourself.
"I shall not come back to your rooms. I will send for my luggage; go down to the Astor House, and you must not be seen in the streets with me. I want Worthington to think that I have dug up his villainy all alone.