“And remember, Russell, of all the confidential transactions you’ve been called upon to perform, this is the one in which I demand the utmost secrecy. I should be the laughing stock of the town if it once got out that I were plunging into fiction instead of into wheat.”
“I’ll never breathe a whisper of it, sir.”
“I am sure you won’t, and that is why I trust you. Now, we’ll just lock the doors and refuse ourselves to all comers. If a novel is to be a success nowadays, when people have so much to read and so little time for reading, it must be as sensational as possible, and I think I can do the trick. Anyhow, if it fails, there’s no great harm done, and for a time we two will court that seclusion with which, I read in the papers, all true literary men surround themselves.”
The two men worked together day after day, until the first draft of the history was completed and typed; then they revised this copy very thoroughly, and Steele directed that duplicates should be made, with blanks left for all proper names. He professed himself dissatisfied with the titles they had invented, and said that while the final manuscript was being prepared, he would concoct more suitable appellations for his main characters, and insert them with his own hand. This final revision was accomplished by John Steele alone, when he inserted the real names; then with his own hand he wrote the following letter to Stoliker, editor of the Daily Blade:
My dear Stoliker:
If the accompanying manuscript ever comes into your possession, I want you first of all to remember that on a certain night I brought to you a most remarkable article regarding the wheat situation in this country, the truth of which you quite legitimately doubted. After-events proved the accuracy of my statement, and you were thus enabled to score a great triumph for your paper. Believe me, then, when I tell you that every word here typed is true; for when you read the accompanying pages, I shall not be by your side to use arguments in favour of its publication. I shall either have disappeared, or, more probably, I shall be dead. In either case, this manuscript, every name in which is real, will give you a clue to the disaster which has overtaken me. In the meantime I remain, Your friend,
John Steele.
This letter and the manuscript he wrapped up into a parcel, which he securely sealed. On the outside he wrote instructions that in the case of his death or disappearance the package was to be handed intact to Stoliker, of the Daily Blade. The other package, with a duplicate of the letter to Stoliker, was placed in the vault of a depository, supposed to be the greatest strong-room in the city, which, he afterwards learned with some amusement, belonged to Amalgamated Soap. The thin key and the code word which opened this receptacle he placed in a sealed envelope which he left in the hands of his legal advisers, with instructions to forward the envelope to Stoliker in case of his death or disappearance.
All this accomplished to his satisfaction, he took the Limited to New York, and entered the tall building on Broadway which was body to the brain that directed the activities of Amalgamated Soap. Asking that his card should be taken to Mr. Nicholson, and replying to an inquiry that he had no appointment, he was taken into a small but richly furnished waiting-room, which he saw to be one of many on the eleventh floor, and there he rested for nearly half an hour before a messenger entered and announced that Mr. Nicholson would be pleased to see him.
Nicholson’s room was large and sumptuous, with several windows opening on Broadway. The two financiers, big and little, met on the plane of ordinary politeness, without any effusion of mutual regard on the one hand, or evidence of mutual distrust on the other.