THE SCHEME THAT DIDN’T WORK.
It had been a day of surprise on the Board of Trade.
Instead of the price of corn going on the toboggan it had closed a couple of points to the good when business ceased for the day.
Everybody was talking about the new factor that had entered the fight.
The newspapers were full of surmises and hints and rumors.
There was no doubt whatever that Mr. Whitemore was out of the running.
Every afternoon paper published an authentic bulletin of his condition, which was given out by reputable physicians as practically unchanged.
A clot of blood or a bone was pressing on his brain, and the chances that he would ever recover were extremely doubtful.
Reporters, however, began to nose out the fact that Vance Thornton, as Mr. Whitemore’s representative, was the power that had made itself felt that day, and from present indications was likely to continue to dominate the market.
Already he had gathered in the greater part of the clique’s five million bushels, which everybody now knew were stored in the elevators of Elevatorville.
At this rate he would soon have absolute control of corn.
But Jarrett, Palmer & Carrington were not beaten yet, by a long chalk.
All during the rest of the week corn was thrown at Jack Fox and accepted.
Every effort was made by the clique to overwhelm the young operator, but it failed.
The Sunday editions now hailed Vance Thornton as the coming corn king.
His picture was printed on the first page, and a copious account of his young life up to date was published in double-leaded type to increase its importance.
Thereafter Mr. Whitemore’s office was filled day after day with eager traders anxious to gain his ear.
Nobody paid any attention whatever to the personality of William Bradhurst, who studiously kept himself in the background and watched with the most profound interest and admiration the working out of the gigantic deal by his young friend.
“You’re a wonder, Vance,” he said to the boy one day as the two were getting ready to go to dinner. “A born speculator. Why, I haven’t seen you ruffled a bit since you took hold of this thing.”
“Yet it takes every minute of my time,” replied Vance, with a smile that covered the weariness inseparable from the control of the tremendous forces latent in a line of fifty million bushels of corn.
“Necessarily,” admitted the millionaire, “but, boy, you are stronger, bigger and shrewder than the great bear clique pitted against you. You’ve overtopped the whole crowd—the biggest men of the Board of Trade. A few days more will show the world that you are really the new corn Monte Christo. A few days more and these bears will wake up to the fact that the corn they have promised to deliver before they had it in hand is not to be got, except from you—and at the price you choose to impose. Jarrett, Palmer, Carrington, and others, not to speak of your dear friends, Jarboe, Willicutt & Co., will have to pay or go bankrupt.”
“Good gracious, Mr. Bradhurst! That can have only one meaning.”
“Exactly. You will actually have cornered the product.”
“I can’t realize it,” said Vance, pressing his hand to his head. “And yet that is the very point I have been aiming for. I am in it now up to my neck—both of us are. Were we beaten at this stage you would be absolutely ruined. And yet I have never for a moment seen you weaken when I called for million after million of your money. Do you actually realize to what extent I have involved you?”
“I do,” replied William Bradhurst coolly. “But I entered this affair on the principle of the whole hog or none. To do otherwise was to invite disaster. No halfway measures will answer in a deal of this kind. You must risk all or better stay out.”
“That’s right. I fear that even Mr. Whitemore would never have succeeded in doing what we have done. We have half his capital at our back as it is.”
“By the way, how is Mr. Whitemore now?”
“I believe he will recover after all. He was taken to a sanitarium a few days ago. He is a wreck at present, and it will be some time before he recovers his grip again, if he ever does.”
“And that rascally bookkeeper that struck him down has not been arrested?”
“No. The police have not been able to locate his whereabouts. He may have fled to Canada. Probably he is hiding out in the wilderness somewhere.”
“Possibly; but you can’t tell. There are hiding places in this city where, by the aid of confederates, he could lie low in comparative safety. You know he was working in the interests of the Jarrett, Palmer & Carrington clique at the start, and but for you taking hold his crime would have proved of enormous advantage to them. Doesn’t it strike you, then, that they haven’t deserted him—that his immunity from arrest is largely due to their influence and pull with their political friends?”
“I didn’t think of that,” replied Vance thoughtfully. “Your idea is reasonable, I am bound to admit.”
“Some day you may find I have hit the mark,” said Bradhurst significantly.
That the millionaire was correct in his deduction Vance Thornton had reason to know ere many hours passed over his head.
While Bessie’s admiration for Vance now increased daily as she saw how he controlled the vast business enterprise he had called into action, still, as he seemed to drift farther and farther away from her—for he had little time now to talk to her, except upon cold matters of business—her gentle, loving heart grew sore and despondent within her.
She felt that she had lost something that might never again be hers.
And the reflection grieved her to the depths of her nature.
Yet the morning and evening smile she daily bestowed on him was just as bright, just as winsome as ever.
Her sorrow was her own.
It was not for Vance to suspect what was passing in that true little heart.
Vance Thornton had returned from his lunch and was shut up in his private office, as usual.
In the last thirty-six hours corn had advanced three cents and the market was in a turmoil.
Bessie appeared at the door of the inner sanctum.
“There’s an old man out here who wants to see you on business of importance. He wouldn’t give his name.”
“Very well; let him come in.”
It was a noticeable fact that the pretty stenographer did not address the busy young operator as Vance any more; and the boy was too much preoccupied these days to observe the omission.
He was a curious character, the man who entered and stood humbly bowing to the young Napoleon of La Salle street, as many of the dailies called Vance in their scare-heads.
He was not exactly seedy, though he certainly was not well dressed.
He was bent over, as if like Atlas he had been condemned to carry the world on his shoulders, but had forgotten to bring it along on this occasion.
But he had extremely bright eyes, which belied his other marks of age, and they peered out in a restive manner from under a pair of heavy, beetling brows.
“Take a seat, sir,” said Vance, pointing with his pen to a chair. “How can I serve you? Make your errand brief, for time with me is money.”
“Do you want to buy any corn?” asked the venerable visitor in a shrill, squeaky voice.
“How much have you for sale?” asked the boy carelessly.
“Six million bushels.”
“What!” ejaculated Vance, wheeling about in his chair and facing the old man.
“Six million bushels.”
“Is this a dream? I have no time for nonsense,” and Vance wondered if he was not up against a lunatic or a crank.
“You will find this no dream, but stern reality, Vance Thornton,” said his visitor in a familiar voice, sitting erect.
Tearing off his snow-white whiskers and pushing back his old sunburned felt hat, he sat revealed as Edgar Vyce.
It cannot be denied that the boy operator was thoroughly astounded at the rascal’s audacity in thus venturing back on the scene of his crime.
But he recovered his presence of mind in a moment.
His fingers moved to one of the electric buttons on the end of his desk.
“Stop!” commanded Vyce, in a low, concentrated tone, raising one hand which held a brown, cylinder-like missile. “Move another inch and I’ll blow you and your desk into La Salle street, and the wall with you.”
Vance instinctively paused.
“That’s right. I see you’ve got some common-sense,” said Vyce grimly.
“What brought you here?” asked the boy, playing for time.
“Business?”
“Well?”
“You observe this cylinder? It contains a small stick of dynamite. If you do what I tell you it goes back into my pocket; if you refuse—the newspapers will have a new sensation, that’s all.”
“You seem to forget,” said Vance, coolly, “that dynamite is like an overloaded shotgun—it works at both ends. If you drop that thing in this room there isn’t a ghost of a chance for you to escape yourself.”
“That needn’t worry you,” retorted the rascal angrily.
“What do you want of me, anyway?” asked the boy impatiently.
“I want you to sign that paper.”
He pushed a document to Vance.
It was a delivery slip for six million bushels of corn, made out in favor of Sidney Carrington.
“So that’s your game, is it?” said Vance Thornton slowly.
“Yes, sir; that’s my game.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Vyce. You’ve shown me the men who are at your back.”
“Precious little good that will do you. You’ve got to sign that paper and swear to drop out of the market, or——” and Edgar Vyce made a significant movement with his arm.
“That’s your ultimatum, is it?”
“That’s what it is.”
“Very well; I’ll do neither.”
“Are you mad?” exclaimed Vyce, furiously, feeling that the object of his visit was a failure.
“Not at all,” replied the boy calmly, though every fibre of his body shook inwardly at the probable risk he was facing. “But do you fancy I would put myself into the power of any crank, not to say scoundrel like yourself, that chose to call and threaten me into doing something he wanted. Not on your life!”
“I don’t see how you can help yourself!” sneered Vyce, eyeing him savagely.
“Look behind you and you will see.”
Vance’s tone and manner threw the villain off his guard an instant.
He started up in his chair and looked around, as though he expected some one stood behind him.
Before he realized the trap that had been sprung on him Vance had seized and wrenched the cylinder of pressed dynamite from his hand.
“Now, Edgar Vyce, you’re my prisoner.”
He drew a small revolver from his pocket and covered the scoundrel.
Fifteen minutes later Edgar Vyce was in the hands of the Chicago police, and ultimately he was tried, convicted and sent to the prison at Joliet for a long term.