THE REASON WHY VANCE THORNTON WAS TICKLED ALMOST TO DEATH.
“What the dickens is he doing in Elevatorville?” ejaculated Vance in great astonishment. “I thought he was attending to business for his father in Kansas City.”
Just then a man in a sack-coat and wearing a smart-looking fedora hat came to the door and entered into conversation with Dudley.
Presently the dapper young man jumped off his perch, and the two began to walk toward the spot where Vance stood regarding them with some curiosity.
“It will never do for him to see me here,” muttered the boy, backing out of view and then walking rapidly down a path that led to that end of the elevator which faced the water. “He’d ask no end of embarrassing questions which I never could answer.”
When Vance reached the corner of the elevator building he found that further progress in that direction was blocked by the water, unless he chose to crawl over the damp sand under the ground floor of the edifice, which was raised several feet on spiles.
So he concluded to wait where he was until the coast was clear again.
He looked back to see if Dudley and his companion were continuing on up the street, but to his dismay he saw they also had turned into the path leading down to the river end of the building.
There was nothing now but to get out of sight under the corner of the elevator and wait for them to retire.
“How long do you expect to stay in this burg, Mr. Dudley?” the man in the fedora hat was saying as the pair came within earshot of Vance’s post of concealment.
“Give it up,” returned the dapper young man, with a yawn. “It’s precious dull here, all right; but I’ve got to stick here until I find out whether that Thornton chap”—at these words Vance pricked up his ears and was instantly on the alert—“is coming down here on a reconnoitering expedition for his boss, old man Whitemore, or not. Those are my orders, and I got them right from the shoulder, too.”
“What makes you think he is coming here?” asked the elevator man curiously.
“We have our reasons,” replied Dudley significantly, “and we’re not taking any chances. I’m watching every train that comes in.”
“I didn’t see you at the depot last night.”
“I don’t have to go to the depot. He’ll go to the hotel as sure as guns, or to the Stag House.”
“Or to the Parker House,” suggested the man in the fedora.
“Scarcely there. He’s got plenty of money and will want the best that is to be had. However, I don’t care where he goes; the moment he registers at any of these places I shall be informed.”
“Well?” said the other interrogatively.
“Then I’ll point him out to you, and it will be up to you to see that he’s blocked at every point.”
“As every one of our men down here has been fixed, I don’t think he’ll find out a heap,” remarked the elevator official in a tone of conviction.
“However, there’s nothing like making assurance doubly sure, Mr. Taggart,” said Dudley, taking out his cigarette case. “Have a smoke?”
“Thanks,” and his companion helped himself to one.
“The whole trouble seems to have developed from the fact that our ally, Vyce—that’s old Whitemore’s bookkeeper—has come under the suspicion of his employer, though it isn’t likely anything can be brought against him. When the combination was forming Carrington found out Vyce could be bought. He had his price—most everybody has—and an arrangement was effected by which he was to keep the opposition pool informed of Whitemore’s operations in this new deal of his as far as he was able to find them out.”
“That was a great advantage,” said Mr. Taggart, wagging his head sagaciously.
“Well, say, you’ve no idea what it counts for. Whitemore has been dominating the bull clique for years. All sorts of jobs have been put up to him, but he has managed to wriggle out somehow. This time we believe it is his object to corner the market, and the combination which is after his scalp is backed by one of the strongest banks in Chicago. I fancy it is strong enough to squeeze him. If we should catch him we’ll wring him bone-dry. We’ll bankrupt him as sure as my name is Guy Dudley.”
The dapper young man lit another cigarette and continued:
“As I was saying, Vyce, our source of information on the inside, has suddenly dried up. Whitemore hasn’t accused him of any underhanded dealings, but the very fact that he has shut up tighter than a clam toward his confidential assistant, and has sent young Thornton—a mere boy, you might say—west to close up his corn options, is a sure sign that the old man is suspicious of Vyce. Ever since that boy left Chicago we have reason to suspect that Whitemore has been quietly buying every bushel of corn that is offered, though his regular brokers do not appear in these transactions. If this is a fact, he must own more than half of the visible supply on the market.”
“He must have a barrel of money.”
“I’d be satisfied with half of what I could raise on his real estate. It was a slick and farseeing move on the part of the pool to sneak five million bushels down here without the fact getting out. That was accomplished early in the game by working our pull with the Mississippi Transportation Co. Nothing like having an influential director or two at your back.”
The man in the fedora hat nodded.
“These elevators have been duly reported out of business for one reason or another.”
“I can’t see how you managed to keep the papers in the dark. What they can’t ferret out isn’t worth knowing.”
Guy Dudley laughed sardonically.
“The combination simply bought up half a dozen of the leading papers, and own them body and soul. They print only what we want on the corn question. They mold public opinion, as it were. The other papers copy our news, and there you are—see?”
Mr. Taggart thought he saw, for he rubbed his hands and laughed.
“But in dealing with such an artful old fox as Jared Whitemore we have to provide against the unusual and the unexpected. It was distinctly unusual for him to send a boy like Vance Thornton to close up his options—yet that is what he has done, and we should never have got on to it if it had not been for the uncommon shrewdness of our man Vyce. If he has done this, there is no reason why he hasn’t instructed the boy to come down here after he has finished with the options and try to find out whether the press reports concerning these elevators are really founded on facts, or whether they have been cooked up by the opposition forces.”
“And do you think that young fellow Thornton is smart enough for such a slick job as that?” asked Mr. Taggart, with a sneer.
“Do I? Well, say, he’s all right, and don’t you make any mistake on that head,” said Dudley in a convincing tone as he gave the rim of his hat a flip backward. “Carrington says he’s smart enough to be dangerous, and Carrington is no fool.”
“Yet he’s only a boy, you say?” said Mr. Taggart, skeptically.
“That’s all right. He was clever enough to block a little game we put up on him in Kansas City, and he didn’t even suspect our intentions, either.”
“How was that?” asked Mr. Taggart, with some interest.
“Carrington came down himself from Chicago to help the thing along, and brought one of his handsomest lady stenographers along to pump the boy dry. And she did it, too; oh, yes, she did it—nit! And we thought he would be such an easy proposition. We wanted to find out all his plans and get possession of the options we supposed he carried about in his clothes.”
“And you failed, eh?”
“We failed all right. He didn’t have as much as a toothpick about him, and so, after dosing his coffee, for he doesn’t drink a drop of liquor, we had all our trouble for nothing. The girl went into a spasm of admiration over Thornton’s cleverness in being prepared for the unexpected, while Carrington was madder than a whole nest of hornets. I took him to his hotel and put him to bed, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him.”
“Well, now, you hear me,” said the man in the fedora hat, thumping the side of the bunch of spiles behind which Vance was listening to this enlightening conversation, “if he comes down here and gets away with a grain of information as big as one grain of those five million bushels stored in these, five elevators, I’ll give you leave to kick me from here to the mouth of the Mississippi.”
The remark was emphatic and forcible, and there was not the slightest doubt that Mr. Taggart meant every word of it, yet is it any wonder that Vance Thornton, under the circumstances, grinned as he had never grinned before in all his life?