STRUCK DOWN.
Vance Thornton and his new friend William Bradhurst, the many-times millionaire, expected to reach Chicago over the P. C. C. and St. L. railroad at about seven o’clock on the morning following their departure from the Missouri junction town.
Their calculations were correct, and the train was entering the Union Depot, corner of Adams and Canal streets, when Jared Whitemore, after a visit to the Chicago National Bank, where he had received and perused Vance’s last letter, mailed after his departure from Elevatorville, was ascending to his office in the Rookery building.
Bessie Brown looked up as Mr. Whitemore entered the outer office, so also did Mr. Vyce, the bookkeeper.
Both noticed that their employer looked unusually stern.
The assistant bookkeeper was out attending to matters that usually fell to Vance to transact.
Without looking either to the right or left, Mr. Whitemore entered his private room.
Presently Bessie’s electric alarm buzzed, and she hastened into the boss’ sanctum.
In a few minutes she returned to her machine, copied a short letter addressed to Jarboe, Willicutt & Co., locked up her notebook and proceeded to put on her hat, an unusual circumstance at that hour.
“Are you going out, Miss Brown?” inquired Mr. Vyce in some surprise.
“Yes, sir,” answered Bessie coldly.
“Rather early for lunch, is it not?” he asked, coming to the end of his desk and regarding her movements curiously.
“I am not going to lunch.”
“Then you are going out on business for Mr. Whitemore, I take it?”
Bessie made no answer, but having got her hat on straight, she deliberately walked to the outer door and passed into the corridor.
“You seem to be putting on a whole lot of airs with me, young lady,” snarled the bookkeeper to the empty office; “all of a sudden, too. You haven’t spoken a civil word to me since that young cub Thornton went away on confidential business for the old man. I shall make it my business to take you down a peg or two. If I am not mistaken in my calculations, you’ll be looking for a new job before long, Bessie Brown—you and that young imp, curse him! If I can keep you both out of the financial district you may depend upon my exertions to that effect.”
At that moment his alarm went off, and sticking his pen into the rack, he walked into the private office.
“Sit down, Mr. Vyce,” said the big corn operator curtly. “You have been in my employ a matter of six years, I think?”
“About that time,” replied the bookkeeper, rather taken back by the question, which bore a fatally significant bearing.
“During the last three years you have enjoyed a considerable degree of my confidence, which has, if anything, increased since the first of the year. How have you returned this trust I reposed in you, sir?”
“How, sir?” faltered the bookkeeper, his guilty conscience flying into his sallow face. “Why——”
“Mr. Vyce, for some weeks past I have had reason to believe that some one conversant with certain plans of mine was giving information to the clique that is opposing me in the market. You are the only one to whom I have opened my lips in this office. I have long regarded you as my right-hand man—a man I thought I could trust.”
“Is it possible that you accuse me, Mr. Whitemore?” asked the bookkeeper, with an injured air.
“I do accuse you, Mr. Vyce, of playing the part of traitor to my interests,” said the corn operator sternly.
“But, sir, unless you have some proof it is unfair——”
“I have the words of a certain Mr. Guy Dudley as evidence that you sold yourself to the pool headed by Jarrett, Palmer & Carrington.”
At the mention of Dudley’s name Mr. Vyce turned as pale as death.
“Guy Dudley!” he exclaimed in a trembling voice. “Why, how could you have seen him? He is not in Chicago.”
“I know that,” replied the operator sharply. “Perhaps you can inform me where he is, since you and he appear to be hand in glove.”
“As you have not seen him, how can you say you have his evidence——”
“We will not argue that point. But if you are curious to know how I obtained my information, I will say that a confidential messenger of mine ran across your friend Dudley and heard from that gentleman’s lips enough to convict you of the charge I bring against you. If you have anything to say in your defence that your conscience would advise you to bring forward I will listen to you, otherwise I will have to ask you to bring your connection with this office to an immediate close.”
“You wish me to understand that you have received this information through Vance Thornton?” asked Mr. Vyce, with compressed lips and lowering brow.
“I have mentioned no name.”
“But you sent him out West.”
“How do you know that?” asked Mr. Whitemore curtly.
“He has been absent from the office for some ten days, and as those options of yours were on the point of expiring, I supposed——”
“Isn’t it a fact that you advised Mr. Sidney Carrington at once of Vance’s absence from this office, and suggested your idea of his destination and purpose? And don’t you know that Mr. Carrington, Mr. Dudley, and a woman connected with their office, went to Kansas City for the express purpose of blocking the boy’s mission by getting possession of my options by foul means?”
“As you seem predisposed to my guilt, I see no use in making any answer to your questions. I wish you to understand that I brand your informant—whether he be Vance Thornton, as I believe, or somebody else—as a liar.”
Mr. Vyce rose to his feet and walked out of the private room.
He was furious with suppressed passion.
Mr. Whitemore followed him out almost immediately, and went to the office safe, where he proceeded to unlock a special compartment to which he only had access.
Edgar Vyce watched him with set white face and venomous eyes.
Suddenly an evil suggestion entered his soul and took lodgment there.
He knew that documents of the greatest moment in connection with the corn market were deposited in that inner safe.
If he could only get possession of them he could make his own terms with the pool in whose interests he had practically lost his position.
If he could get possession of them!
There was nobody in the office at that moment but he and Mr. Whitemore.
Suppose——
For a moment the blood congealed around his heart, and he clutched at the desk to support himself.
The corn operator was about to relock the steel door.
It was now or never if he was to do anything.
Without waiting for the fiendish suggestion to cool he seized a heavy ruler and, with a muttered imprecation, sprang at the operator from behind.
Mr. Whitemore heard him and gave a startled glance backward.
But he was at the infuriated man’s mercy.
Thud!
The ruler descended on the old operator’s head, and he went down on the carpet like a stricken ox at the shambles.
At that identical instant Vance Thornton, dusty and travel-stained, appeared at the office door.
He was a witness of the murderous attack.
With a cry of horror he sprang forward to aid his now insensible employer.
“You here!” cried Vyce, turning on him with the rage and despair of a man detected in the commission of a desperate crime. “You shall never live to tell the story.”
In a moment they had grappled in a terrible struggle.
The boy, encumbered by his light overcoat, was at a disadvantage.
The bookkeeper was strong, agile and desperate.
They swayed to and fro within the brass railings near the safe, Vyce trying to get a grip on Vance’s throat.
At length the bookkeeper succeeded in tripping Thornton so that he fell across the railing, and then he began to pound the boy over the head and face with his fist.
The result was now no longer in doubt, for Vyce clearly had the upper hand.
He intended to kill the lad, for he hated him as only such a malignant nature can hate.
But fate willed it otherwise, else this story would not have been written.
The outer door suddenly opened, and Bessie Brown appeared in the opening.
With dilated eyes she looked a moment on the scene.
She recognized Vance Thornton and the awful situation he was in.
Uttering a piercing scream that echoed through the corridors, Bessie seized the first thing that came to her hand, which happened to be a cane forgotten by a morning visitor, and jumped to Vance’s assistance.