Lockwood got three days’ leave of absence from Craig with some difficulty, and only by alleging business in Mobile of the utmost importance. The camp was busy; Craig did not want to let him go, and was much afraid that he would not come back. He valued his new woods rider; and he had remarked to the camp foreman that Lockwood was naturally cut out for a turpentine man, and he was going to hold on to him.
By good luck the camp motor car was going over to Bay Minette, and Lockwood went there in it. The afternoon train was crowded, full of well-dressed people and the stir of life from which it seemed to him that he had been long exiled. He reached Mobile late in the day; the sunshine lay low on the palms of Government Street as he walked up from the Louisville & Nashville depot, and he knew that it was too late to make any investigations that day.
He lodged himself at the St. Andrew Hotel, and he sat that evening and smoked under the live oaks of Bienville Square, where the fountain splashed and gurgled. Only four blocks away stood the Maury Building, where the office of the “oil company” was said to be. In the morning he would find out if there was any oil company there, and, if not, the secretary of the board of trade would probably tell him all he wished to know.
He spent an impatient and restless night in a stifling hot hotel bedroom, and shortly after nine o’clock next morning he went up in the elevator of the Maury Building. The door of No. 24 was locked. There was no sign, no lettering on the ground glass, nothing but the uninforming number. Disappointed, he went down again, and sought information from the colored elevator boy, passing a quarter.
“Who’s in Number 24?”
“Numbah twenty-fo’? Dat’s Mr. Harding’s room, suh.”
“What time does he generally get down?”
“Why, he ain’t noways reg’lar, captain. Sometimes he don’t come down at all. Mostly he’s here ’fo’ noon.”
“I see. Is the office of the Pascagoula Oil Company in this building?”
“Dunno, sur. Ain’t never heard of ’em.”
Lockwood returned toward ten o’clock, finding the office still closed. It was not till past eleven that he at last found the door of No. 24 unlocked. He went in without ceremony. The room was quite unfurnished, but for a shabby flat desk and a couple of chairs. There were cigar stubs on the floor and a strong odor of stale smoke in the air. Behind the desk sat a well-dressed, heavy-faced man of middle age, smoking and reading the Mobile Register.
At the first glance Lockwood had a flash of memory from his past life that was like a shock; but it was vague, and he could not localize it. He stared in silence at the man, who had put down the paper and was looking at him.
“Are you—are you Mr. Harding?” Lockwood got out at last, trying to recover himself.
“Yes, sir. That’s my name,” replied the cigar smoker, in distinctly Northern accents. And at that moment Lockwood’s memory found its mark.
He had a painful vision of his own real-estate office long ago, of McGibbon, of Maxwell sullenly stating the forced terms that meant ruin. Yes, it was Maxwell, it was Hanna’s old confederate, here in Mobile, here in the rooms of the “Pascagoula Oil Company;” and a great flood of illumination swept over Lockwood’s whole mind. It was through Mobile that the orders for the Powers’ reckless purchases had gone. Ten to one it was through this office, leaving a fifty-per-cent commission.
“I am,” Lockwood stated, “a piano salesman.”
“Well?” returned Harding, who was plainly far from recognizing his visitor.
“I’ve just come down from Rainbow Landing. I guess you know the Powers there?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“They’re thinking of buying a piano. I called to see you. I believe the order will go through you, won’t it?”
“Who told you that?” Harding queried roughly.
“I guessed at it. There are all sorts of discounts and commissions, you know.”
The man picked up his cigar again, looked at it, hesitating visibly; then spoke:
“I don’t know how you’ve got this idea. I’m not in the piano business. If you want to sell the Powers a piano, why go ahead. But this is a law office.”
“Oh, a law office!” said Lockwood, inwardly tickled at the word. “I thought you represented the Pascagoula Oil Company.”
Harding was visibly taken aback this time, and stared hard at his interlocutor.
“Never heard of it,” he returned.
“But,” Lockwood insisted, “this is the address given on their stationery and literature.”
“Hum!” said Harding reflectively. His manner softened a good deal. “Come to think of it, I do believe I’ve heard of ’em. I’ve only been in this office a couple of months. I guess they were the people here before me. But they’re gone. Yes, sir, they’ve moved. But I can find ’em for you. Ain’t they in the telephone book? Well, I can find out, anyhow.”
“I wish you would.”
“I certainly will,” said Harding, growing more genial. “Are you located in town? At the St. Andrew? Good! I’ll telephone you just as soon as I find the address.”
They parted with great mutual cordiality, and Lockwood chuckled when he was on the street again. He chuckled with success; he was almost certain now; but to make absolutely certain he called at the office of the Pascagoula Land and Development Company, whose name he had accidentally heard that day.
Their offices were decorated with semitropical fruits and vegetables of every description, and he learned from the manager that oil was almost the sole natural product which their territory could not furnish. No oil had ever been discovered in that county; no boring had ever been done; and he could not be in error, for he had spent his life there.
It was merely what Lockwood had been certain of all along, but he felt that the matter was now clinched. He planned to take the midnight train back to Bay Minette. He returned to his hotel, and, to his extreme surprise, was handed a note which Harding had sent over by messenger an hour before. He had located the Pascagoula Oil Company, Harding said; if Lockwood would call again in the Maury Building the next morning he would receive the information he wanted.
Of course Harding could very well have put the address in his note, but he evidently had planned some move, and Lockwood was sufficiently curious to wait over. He spent another night at the hotel, and it was with the expectation of an extremely curious and interesting conversation that he opened the door of office No. 24 the next morning. Harding was not there, but Hanna sat looking across the desk at his entrance.
Lockwood paused, bewildered, and then remembered the long-distance telephone. Undoubtedly Harding had sent a hurry call. Hanna had had just time to motor to the railway and catch the Mobile train.
The nerves thrilled down his spine. It was going to come to a show-down at last. He felt the pressure of the little automatic at his hip—not that this office building was the place for pistols, with the click of typewriters, the coming and going of people in the adjoining rooms.
“Well!” said Hanna curtly. “Have a chair. So you’ve been looking into oil stocks.”
“I didn’t need to look much,” Lockwood returned, without sitting down. “I got my material for a report without much trouble.”
“And you’re fixing to make a report?”
“I surely am.”
“What do you expect to get out of it?”
“I get you, out of it, Hanna.”
“I see!” said the crook reflectively. “Well, that’s a good stunt. Blackmail, hey? Ever since you came to Rainbow Landing I’ve been trying to figger out what you came for. ’Course I seen right away that you wasn’t there for the turpentine business. For a while I did think you were after the girl.”
“The girl is neither your affair nor mine,” said Lockwood.
“Well, I thought you might be sweet on her,” went on Hanna, looking keenly at his opponent’s face. “I was sweet on her myself, one time. Fact is, I could have her now, if I wanted her. But I’ve got other fish to fry.”
“I know you’re lying, Hanna!” Lockwood returned.
“Well, that’s neither here nor there,” Hanna resumed, with no air of resentment. “You’ll find out soon. But I was going to say that we might do a deal. I’ll let you alone with the girl, and you let me alone with the rest of ’em. I could block your game in a minute, you know. What I say goes in that family.”
“Not so much as you think. But I’m making no such deal.”
“Well, then, what’s your figure?”
“For what?”
“Why, suppose you don’t go back with any report on oil stocks. In fact, you don’t go back there at all. Supposing I fall for your blackmailing scheme. Supposing I pay into a bank—say at Chicago—two thousand dollars, and you go there and draw it.”
“And leave you to clean out the Power bank roll?”
“Not so bad as that. I’m not going to put them clean out of business. They’ll still be rich compared to what they were before. Those people are bound to get skinned. They’re begging for it. If I don’t get it, somebody else will.”
“Still, when I make friends with folks I hate to rob them,” said Lockwood cautiously.
“Maybe, but it’s the way of the world,” Hanna returned. “I happened on them by chance. Say, you’ve no idea of the state I found them in. Money was burning holes in their pockets, and they hadn’t the faintest notion how to spend it. I expect you’ve seen through my game. You know they paid about double for everything they bought. The orders all went through me. But still, Lord! I did let them have something. Most men would have turned them inside out.”
“Well, that’s what you’re planning to do now.”
“I don’t know,” Hanna replied thoughtfully. “Sometimes I’ve thought of settling down and spending the rest of my life on that plantation. Why not? But, anyhow. I’m the dog in the manger—see? You’ve got to keep out, and I’m prepared to bonus you for it.”
“Suppose I reported all this talk to our friends?”
“They wouldn’t believe you, son,” said the bandit with assurance. “I won’t deny that you might make me some little trouble, if you came back with a fishy tale about my oil well. I might have to take Tom down the coast and show him some oil derricks. There’s heaps of ’em near Mobile. But you might bother me some, and so I say, what’s your figure? I’ll make it five thousand.”
“Not enough!” said Lockwood.
“Why, I won’t clear much over twice that!” Hanna complained. “You’re a devil of a hard man to do business with. I’ll go six thousand, and that’s my last raise, by gad! It’ll be paid you in Chicago, and you’ll have to sign a statement that you’ve investigated my oil well and found it all right, and that you’ve left Alabama for good.”
Lockwood shook his head stolidly.
“Then what the deuce do you want?” Hanna demanded.
“Ten thousand cash, or a certified check payable to Henry Power. I figure that’s about the amount you’ve got out of him so far.”
Hanna exploded a tremendous and astonished oath. His eyes and forehead wrinkled up like a bulldog’s, and he stared at Lockwood venomously.
“What’s your game?” he exclaimed. “Who are you, anyway? I know I’ve seen you outside of Alabama.”
“No, you don’t know me, Hanna,” said Lockwood with equal animosity. “My only game is to beat you and break you. You’d better not go back to Rainbow Landing yourself. Or go, if you like, and I’ll meet you and beat you on your own ground.”
“That’s to be seen,” Hanna returned, resuming apparent coolness. “I could blacken your name so that the boys would shoot you on sight. But no use quarreling. I’ve made you an offer. I’ll split the game, but I won’t spoil it. What do you say? It’s your last chance.”
“It’s yours,” said Lockwood. “Will you disgorge, or are you going to go back to Rainbow Landing and risk it. You’ll be jailed or shot.”
Hanna grinned at him across the desk without saying anything. Lockwood walked to the door, opened it, and turned back. If he expected Hanna to back down at the last moment, he was disappointed. The confidence man still grinned derisively, and Lockwood went out.
He felt agitated and flurried now, sorry, too, that he had become involved in a wordy wrangle, sorry that he had showed his hand. His great need now was to get back as fast as possible to Rainbow Landing, for he knew well that Hanna would waste no moments now. There was a train at three o’clock, and his watch said that it was noon.
For greater certainty he determined to get into touch with Louise at once. There was no telegraph connection, but there was the telephone, and he went to the city central office, and asked to be put through, but at last he had to give it up. There was just time to get his suit case at the hotel and go to the depot. When he arrived there he learned that the time had been changed, and that his train had been gone half an hour.
However, it was boat day, and the steamer would leave for upriver points at five o’clock. Considering the long drive from Bay Minette to Craig’s camp, and the uncertainty of being able to obtain a motor, he thought that his chance was probably better by boat than by rail.
The boat, as always, was an hour late in getting off. Lockwood did not sleep much that night. He did not undress, but he lay down in his berth for a few hours, marking each landing as they passed it. The great searchlight swung its long finger of light ahead; the cypress swamps, the marshy headlands, the ghostly line of sycamores and live oaks slipped past. A heavy, hot smell of vegetable decay came off the land.
The lumbering steamer made good speed that night. Shortly after midnight they came up to the colored bluffs of Rainbow Landing, and hauled in to the warehouse, amid the usual shouting and excitement of the negroes. Lockwood was the only passenger to land, and there were no more than three or four waiting figures ashore. He had hardly stepped off the plank when one of these figures stepped forward to meet him.
“Mr. Craig sent me over to meet you, Mr. Lockwood. His car’s busted a tire, but I’ve got my buggy to drive you to the camp.”
Lockwood could not see the man’s face in the gloom, but he guessed it to be one of the farmers of the neighborhood. They all knew him by this time, and he had met most of them, though he could hardly have remembered their names.
“Thanks—all right!” he said gladly. “How did Mr. Craig know I was coming on this boat?”
“I reckoned you sent him word,” said the man, leading the way to where a horse was hitched back in the darkness. When he thought of it, Lockwood believed that he had told Craig that he would be up on the first boat. They drove away at a fast trot through the swamp, up to the crossroad, down past the post office—all familiar ground now. They passed the Power house, wrapped in complete darkness.
“Do you know if Mr. Hanna is back?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir. Seen him this evenin’,” the driver answered.
Hanna had beaten him then. Lockwood was revolving this fact anxiously when the driver pulled up suddenly, got out and went behind the buggy, uttering a disgusted curse. They had just reached the bayou bridge.
“Wish you’d please git out, sir. Tire’s done come off.”
Lockwood swung out. He had one foot on the step and one on the ground when there was a silent and ferocious rush upon him out of the darkness. Something fell like thunder upon his skull. Fire flamed over his brain, and vanished suddenly in black darkness.