The situation was alarming. Unless we could get that injunction dissolved, and speedily, our project faced serious danger. The banker Farson's telegram was only the first. The banks and our backers East and West would soon call us to account.
"It is blackmail," I said to Slocum, "and if there is a way out we will not pay those rats. Find out what you can about them."
In a day or two he came over to me with the information he had obtained. The "syndicate" consisted of three or four cheap fellows, hangers-on of a broker's office. One of them happened to be a relative of Judge Garretson, who had issued the midnight injunction.
"I got that last from Ed Hostetter," Slocum explained. "I met him on the street as I was coming over here. Having heard that this Lucas Smith lived out Ed's way, in May Park, I asked him if he knew anything about the man. He said at once: 'You mean the jedge's brother-in-law? He's a political feller.' Of course this Smith is a bum like the rest."
So we had in Ed, who had come back to work for me, having failed in a market where I had started him after the sausage plant was sold.
"Ed," I said to him, "we want you to find out all you can about this brother-in-law of Judge Garretson's. See if you can learn how many of those London and Chicago bonds he holds."
The next morning Ed brought us the information that Lucas Smith was willing enough to talk, boasting that he and his friends were going "to tune up those packers in good style." Ed thought they had got their tip from one of Lokes's pals. It seems that Smith owned, nominally, only two of the bonds. And there we were! Slocum rubbed his chin, trying to see light in a dark place.
"What sort of a man is this Judge Garretson?" I asked the lawyer.
"Good enough for a political judge, I guess. He's up for reëlection this fall. There was some talk about his attitude in traction cases, but nothing positive against him."
"See here, Ed!"—I turned to Hostetter abruptly—"I want you to go straight out to this Lucas Smith's place and find him. Tell him you know where he can get twenty-five thousand dollars for those two bonds of his the day Judge Garretson dissolves that injunction."