“I hope not,” the other retorted, “nothing handicaps a man more in life. I happen to know golf, though, and my experience is that if I play with a much inferior player I get careless and that’s bad for my game. I’m perfectly frank about it. You know next to nothing about the game. In your own line of work you could no doubt give me a big beating because you know it and I don’t.”
“And what do you suppose my line of work is?” snapped the annoyed mill-owner.
“I don’t know,” Trent commented. “Either a dentist or a theatrical producer.” As he spoke up sauntered one of the two men with whom he had seen Dangerfield in the subway.
“I’d like to hire some one to take the starch out of you,” Dangerfield said as he rose to his feet.
“Quite easy,” Trent returned, “almost any professional could.”
He watched the two walk away and chuckled. He had attracted the millionaire’s attention and he had rebuffed him. So far his programme was being carried out on scheduled time. The attendant had not looked at him with any special interest. It was unlikely in different clothes, under other conditions and in a strange place he would recognize him.
He did not play again that day. Instead he paid attention to some elderly ladies who knitted feverishly and were inclined to talk. He learned a great deal of useful news. For example, that the Dangerfields always had meals in their big private suite and rarely without guests from nearby homes. That they quarreled constantly. That Mr. Dangerfield never went to bed wholly sober. That he was given to sudden gusts of temper and only last year had beaten a caddie and had been compelled to settle the assault with a large money payment. That he was not above pocketing a golf ball if he could do so without being observed. That he had several times been seen to lift his ball out of an unfavorable lie into one from which he could play with greater chance of making a good stroke.
These petty meannesses Trent had already surmised. Dangerfield seemed to him that sort of a man. He was more interested in the dinner parties. But a man in such a position as he was had to be careful as to what questions he asked. People had a knack of remembering them at inopportune moments. Fortunately one of the ladies, who was a Miss Northend of Lynn, came back to it. She was a furious knitter and knitted best when her tongue wagged.
“Of course this hotel belongs to Mr. Dangerfield,” she babbled, “and that explains why they have a palatial suite here and can entertain even more readily than if they had a summer home, as their friends have. This is a very fashionable section. The women dress here as if they were in Newport. Every night Mr. Dangerfield goes down to the hotel safe and brings something gorgeous in the jewelry way for his wife to wear. There’s a private stairway he uses. I wandered into it once by mistake.”
“And sister was so flustered,” the other Miss Northend of Lynn told him, “that when he accused her of spying on him she couldn’t say a word. It really did look suspicious until he knew we were Northends and our father was his counsel once when he controlled the Boston and Rangely road.”