Before he went home Trent looked up Sunset Park in a golfer’s guide. It was a little-known course among the Berkshires, with only nine holes to its credit. The rates of the hotel were sufficiently high to make it clear only the rich could play. It was probably one of these dreary courses where a scratch player would be a rara avis, a course to which elderly men, playing for their health, gravitated and made the lives of caddies miserable.
It was a curious thing, Trent thought, that while this morning he knew nothing of Dangerfield, by night he knew a great deal. An evening paper told him why the millionaire was going to the Berkshires. There was to be a wedding in high society and the bride was a niece of Mrs. Jerome Dangerfield. The ceremony would take place at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, and a bishop would unite the contracting parties. The fancy dress ball to be held would be the most elaborate ever held outside New York. A great pavilion was to be erected for the occasion in the grounds of the bride’s magnificent home, and Newport would be for the moment deserted. It was rumored that the jewels to be worn would exceed in value anything that had ever been gathered together this side the Atlantic, and so on, two columns long.
It explained very clearly why the Jerome Dangerfields were going to Sunset Park. The collective value of the jewels appealed particularly to Trent. He wondered if the Mount Aubyn ruby would shine out on that festal night. And if so how would it be guarded? It would be less difficult to disguise the detectives in fancy costume than in evening dress. Of course the owner of such a world-famous gem might wear an imitation as the Baroness von Eckstein had done. But if Clarke had painted her aright this was an occasion when an ambitious woman would be willing to take risks.
The proprietors of the Sunset Park Hotel were glad to accommodate Mr. Anthony Trent with a bed and bathroom for a little over a hundred dollars a week. It was a very select resort, they explained, attracting such people as the Jerome Dangerfields and their friends.
The golf course was owned by the hotel and the first tee was on the lawn a few yards from the front piazza. On the morning following his arrival, Trent, golf clubs already allotted to a caddy, waited to see what kind of golf was played. They were indifferently good but he betrayed little attention until he saw Dangerfield coming. Immediately he went to the tee but did not make his first shot until the millionaire was near enough to see. Playing alone as was the capitalist—for few were yet on the links—he had not to wait as he must have done had the other been playing with a partner. The first green was distant one hundred and sixty yards from the tee. A brook with sedgy reeds was a fine natural hazard, and as the green was on an elevated plateau with deep grass beyond, it was not an easy one to reach. Dangerfield dreaded it.
Dangerfield saw a tall, slim young man correctly clad in breeches and stockings, using a mashie, drop his ball neatly on the green within putting distance of the hole. Later he saw the hole done in two which was one under par.
“Who is that man?” Dangerfield demanded of his caddie.
“Never seen him before,” the lad answered.
Dangerfield took his brassey and went straightway into the brook. He saw, however, as he was ball hunting, this stranger make a wonderful drive to the second—two hundred and fifty yards, the enthusiastic caddie swore. Meanwhile the millionaire continued to press and slice and pull and top his ball to such effect as to do the double round in one hundred and forty-two. Nothing exasperated him so much as to find the game mock his strength and desire. A power wherever money marts were, he was here openly laughed at by caddies. He was discovering that rank on the links is determined by skill at the game alone. What mattered it that he was the great Jerome Dangerfield. What had he done the round in? What was his handicap?
He particularly wanted to humble Stephen Goswell, president of the First Agricultural Bank of New York City. Goswell was a year ahead of him at the game and had the edge on him so far. Goswell could manage short approaches occasionally, strokes that were beyond his own inflexible wrists. Now this tall, dark stranger had such strokes to perfection. The ball driven up into the air skimmed tree, wall or bunker and rolled up to the pin sweetly. Dangerfield quickly made up his mind. He would invite the stranger to play with him and then get hints which would improve his game fifty per cent.