"Wouldn't it?" said Hendrie, removing his cigar and seriously contemplating the perfect white ash at its tip. "Maybe you're right though. Guess you know the limits you can go to. Still, you're apt to be overconfident. Guess you were that way some time back. You remember. You warned me you intended to 'smash' me. That was the word. It's a good word to impress folks who're carried away by words. But it's too showy for me. Besides, it's a fool trick to warn folks you're going to hunt 'em. You need to do the smashing first and warn afterwards. That's my way. In your case that warning was fatal. It left me time to get busy. Oh, I got busy all right. Maybe you know I went East, just after. I s'pose you kept track of me. I went East for two reasons. One to make it so you couldn't hurt me through your labor machinery. The other to—hunt you up."
He paused and their eyes met. A quick, furtive inquiry was in Leyburn's. In Hendrie's there was simply a deadly cold light as he nodded.
"Oh, yes," he went on. "I hunted you up all right. P'r'aps you don't know it—but you ought to—my work is to study and watch the money market. It is for me to find out who're moving, who're manipulating. It's not always easy. So, to do it successfully, and to keep myself just ahead of other folks, I have a bureau of secret information that would be a credit to New York Tammany Hall. Do you follow me?"
Leyburn abruptly shifted his position.
"I don't," he denied, with unnecessary force.
Hendrie knocked his ash on to the Turkey carpet.
"I'll make it plainer. It will enlighten Angus, here, as well. When you're in conspiracy to play the stock market through labor strikes which you control, it's best not to threaten to smash one of the biggest operators in the country. If you're sensible, and finish with me as I want you to finish, these things don't matter. But if you're foolish, and headstrong, there are a heap of things may happen. One of them is the prisoners' dock for criminal conspiracy in your labor work. Not only for you, but for the other 'heads' of your movement."
Leyburn suddenly burst into a laugh. It was forced. It was so evidently forced that it drew a reluctant smile from the watchful Scot behind him, and a contemptuous smiling response from Hendrie, himself.
"Funny, isn't it?" the millionaire observed calmly. "It would be funnier still if your union members heard of it. Gee, they'd be tickled to death."
But the humor suggested by Hendrie passed his prisoner by. His laugh had died out, and his angry eyes snapped.