IX.--CONCERNING THE APPREHENSION OF CLARK'S DIRECTORS
Move now to Philadelphia, long since linked with St. Marys by a privatewire, at either end of which sat the confidential operators of theCompany. The seed sown by Clark a few years ago had flourishedamazingly. Instead of the austerity of Wimperley's office there wasnow the quiet magnificence of the Consolidated Company's financialheadquarters, tenanted by a small battalion of clerks and officials.These were the metropolitan evidence of the remote activities in St.Marys.
To thousands of Pennsylvanians this office was a focal point of extremeinterest. From it emanated announcements of work by which they werevitally affected, for Clark had come to Philadelphia at thepsychological moment and cast his influence on those who wereaccredited leaders in the community. He had said that millions waitedinvestment and he was right, for once Wimperley, Stoughton and Riggshad satisfied themselves as to the project and announced their support,money began to come in, at first in a slow trickle, but soon in asteadily increasing flood.
It was recognized that time was required to bring to fruition thevarious undertakings so rapidly conceived, and Clark's shareholders hadin them a certain stolid deliberation, aided, perhaps, by a strain ofDutch ancestry. This kept money moving in a steady stream and in thedesired direction. From Philadelphia the attraction spread to outsidepoints. It was noticeable that, with the exception of Pennsylvania,other States did not evidence any appreciable interest. The thing wasa Philadelphia enterprise, and to this city from neighboring villagescame a growing demand for stock.
Four years before this, St. Marys was practically unknown inPhiladelphia, but now at thousands of breakfast tables the morningpapers were hurriedly turned over in search of the closing quotation ofClark's various companies. These began to increase in number, andthere commenced that gigantic pyramid in which the various stories wereinterdependent and dovetailed with all the art of the financial expert.Daily, it might be said, the interest grew, until it seemed that thepotent voice of the rapids had leaped the intervening leagues and itsdull vibrations were booming in the ears of thousands.
Moving in the procession was one whose training did not permit ofwholesale surrender to the cause. Wimperley was a railway man and had,in consequence, a keen eye for results. His normal condition of mindwas one in which he balanced operating costs against traffic returnsand analyzed the results. And Wimperley was getting anxious. Theprofits from the pulp mill, for there were profits, had gone straightinto other undertakings, and the god of construction who reigned at St.Marys demanded still further offerings. This was why Wimperley hadpersuaded Birch, one of the keenest and most cold blooded financial menin the city, to come on the board. Birch, he reckoned, would be thenecessary balance-wheel, and it was safe betting that he would notyield to the mesmeric influence of the man in St. Marys. Now Stoughtonand Riggs and Birch had met him in the Consolidated office, and througha pale, gray haze of cigar smoke Wimperley spoke that which was in hismind.
"The thing is going too fast," he concluded. "My God! How much moneyhas that man spent?"
Birch fingered a straggling gray beard. He was a tall man, lean andsilent, with a tight mouth, sallow cheeks and cold eyes. It was saidhe had never been caught napping, and his was one of those fortuneswhich are acquired in secrecy. He was neither companionable normagnetic but he was obviously shrewd and astute and created a sense ofconfidence which, though chilling, was none the less reassuring.Birch, like the rest, had met Clark, but now he put the vision of thoseremarkable eyes out of his head.
"Seven millions and a half up to last Saturday."
Stoughton made a thick little noise in his throat. He knew it wassomething over seven millions, but the figures sounded differently asBirch gave them. Then Wimperley's voice came in.
"Had a letter yesterday, Clark wants to build a railway."
"Why?" squeaked Riggs.
"To bring down pulp wood from new areas which are not on the river. Hewants to open up the country generally--says it is full of naturalresources."
"Is there any dividend in sight?" demanded Stoughton bluntly.
Followed a little silence and the long thin fingers of Birch began anintermittent tap on the polished table. Presently Wimperley glanced upand smiled dryly. He had not known that Birch understood the Morsecode. "Birch has told you," he said.
Stoughton and the rest looked puzzled.
"We can't pay a dividend if we let Clark build this railway."
"Then why build it?"
"Clark claims it is necessary to secure a dependable supply of sprucefor the pulp mills, and hard wood for the veneer works. He reckons itwill cost two million, and says the Government will help--but perhapsthey won't." He broke off, rather red in the face.
"Do any of you fellows remember Marsham?" put in Birch quietly.
Stoughton looked up. "Only too well, what about him?"
"Well, you know he's been gunning for me for years since that Alabamascrap in which he got knocked out. Now he's gunning for all of us."
"Why?" demanded Wimperley.
"Because I have the present privilege of being associated with you. Ihad it privately from perfectly reliable sources. Marsham's lookingfor a hole in the Consolidated, and if he finds one he's going to getbusy and you know what that means. So far we're all right becausewe've got the Dutch farmer behind us and his money is coming in, in agood steady trickle. It's our job to keep it trickling till we get outof the woods into which our prophet has led us."
Wimperley nodded gravely. "That sounds good to me. But I've gotsomething else in my mind."
"Well," snapped Birch, "spit it out."
"I've got to go back a bit to a day you'll all remember, except you,Birch."
"The day of hypnosis?" suggested Stoughton.
"I guess it was, if you like to put it that way. We were satisfiedwith what Clark told us and what we afterwards saw for ourselves, andwe found him three millions, then another and another and so on. Now,as it stands and as it goes, I don't see any end to this thing. It'slike throwing money into the rapids at St. Marys--a fresh sweep ofwater comes and carries it away. You see it glint for a moment andthere's apparently no bottom to the river. The trouble with Clark isthat he is not equipped with brakes. He can't stop. He's always theroof on one station and, at the same time, contracting for another onestill further on. We've got to do the braking, that's all." He turnedto Riggs, "How about it?"
"Well," said the little man out of the corner of his mouth. "It's ourfuneral just as much as Clark's. Why didn't we apply the brakes longago?"
"You know as well as I do."
"I'm damned if I do."
"It's just because we're better business men in Philadelphia than weare when we get to St. Marys," grunted Stoughton reflectively. "We'reoutside the charmed circle down here, but when we get up there," hewaved his hand, while the end of his cigar glowed like a miniaturevolcano, "we get locoed, the whole bunch of us."
"And yet," said Birch reflectively, "there's nothing the matter."
Wimperley leaned forward. "Go on."
"It's simple enough, we're not using Clark properly."
"Isn't seven millions proper?" boomed Stoughton.
"You don't get me," Birch spoke in a thin dry voice totally devoid ofany emphasis. "The proper use of a man like that is the purpose forwhich nature designed him. He's an originator--but not an executive.Dividends don't interest him half as much as the foundations of a newmill."
Wimperley shook his head. "That may be all right, but from my point ofview he has become dangerous. He surmounts our resolutions, the oneswe make when our pulse is normal. I have never seen him fail to carryhis point. Take the matter of this railway. I don't mind betting thatif we go up there to-morrow to kill that road we'll be committed to itin twenty-four hours."
"I'll take that for a thousand." There was a spot of faint color inBirch's hollow cheeks.
Wimperley laughed. "I'm on. What about lunch and f
inish thisafterwards?"
But Stoughton sat tight. "You'll go too far. Suppose that Clark getson his ear and tells us to run the thing in our own way, and that he'llget out. As I see it, he holds the works together and represents theworks in the mind of every one who knows him."
"Well, what if he does drop out? There's no living man who can't bereplaced."
"Except one called Robert Fisher Clark. As a first consequence ourstocks drop on the Philadelphia exchange like a wet sponge. You canimagine the rest---you all know enough about the market, and, by theway, does any one happen to remember the various things we havepublicly said about that same individual?"
This was food for thought. Wimperley, dismissing the idea of lunch,sat down. The group became universally reflective, and for a littlewhile no one spoke. Stoughton threw away his cigar, rested his chin onhis hand and stared at the model of the pulp mill on Wimperley's desk.Wimperley's eyes wandered to the big map and again he saw Clark'sfinger sliding over its glazed surface. Riggs twisted his handkerchiefwith a puzzled look in his bright eyes, and Birch leaned back,stretching his long legs, while his tremulous lids began to flicker andhis lips moved inaudibly. To each man there seemed to come the rumbleof the mills, the wet grind of the huge stones against the snowybillets of spruce, and behind it all the deep tones of the rapids.Presently the voicelessness of Birch found speech.
"As I said there's nothing to worry about--yet. Two of us might go upnext week. I'll be one, if you like--and put the brakes on--but not sothat he'll feel them. If we only get out of the coach and take thedriver's seat the thing will be all right. Trouble is we've sat toolong inside and wondered where we were. Wimperley is right. And don'tforget that Clark has something at stake too."
It was all so even and sane that it acted like oil on troubled waters.Stoughton jumped up, remarking that now he could eat, while Riggs,remembering that six per cent. on seven millions of issued bonds wasfour hundred and twenty thousand, stared at Birch and marveled how hecould have managed to put it away in the face of such expenditure.Just as he was reaching for his hat, the door opened and a telegram wasbrought in. Wimperley took it carelessly. He was too full of reliefto be interested in anything else and experienced a gratified glow inthat he had spoken what was in his mind and been upheld. Then,glancing at the telegram, his face changed and he felt his templesredden. The message was from Clark, who now asked that seriousconsideration be given to the building of blast furnaces at St. Marys.He stood for a moment while the others glanced at him curiously.
"What about that?" he jerked out, and gave the yellow sheet to Birch.
Birch read it aloud slowly, and, after an impressive pause read itagain and still more slowly, the pink spots on his cheeks becomingbrighter, his hard dry tones still more cold and mechanical. When helooked up Stoughton had turned his back and, with shoulders up, wasstaring out of the window. Riggs was red and flustered. After amoment the little man found breath.
"He's crazy, that's all."
"Well, Wimperley?" Birch had not moved.
"This is the last straw. It's a case of our getting rid of him beforehe gets rid of us, or the shareholders do."
Birch turned to the window. "Well, what about it?"
Stoughton hunched his shoulders still higher. "Fire him," he saidstolidly, then puffed his cheeks and breathed on the widow pane. Inthe fog he wrote "Fire him" with his forefinger, taking particular careto make it legible with neatly formed letters. The next moment bothfog and words evaporated. It flashed into Stoughton's mind that theyhad not lasted long. He swung round, "It's the only thing to do, but Idon't want the job. You can have it, Birch."
The lean face changed not a whit. "I take my end of it. If I don't,Marsham will."
"Look here, this isn't a one man job." Wimperley's voice had barelyregained its steadiness. "This message settles, as I take it, ourviews of Clark. God knows we don't question anything but hissuitability for his position at the present stage of affairs. He's gotto be told the inevitable and we've all got to go up. There's no otherway out of it. We'll give him one or two of the smaller companies torun and the public needn't know anything about it. I remember thepoint you made, Stoughton. It's a good one and we've got to look outfor it."
But Stoughton did not move. "I'll be damned," he said softly, stillstaring at the roof lines of Philadelphia. "Blast furnaces!"
"You will, if you don't come up with us," replied Birch acidly.
"I suppose I will. When do we go?"
"Will a week from to-day suit?"
They all made it suit. After a contemplative moment Riggs asked:
"Will you let him know, Wimperley, and just what do you propose to say?You'll remember there have been other times when we contemplatedputting the brakes on, but we all got galvanized and the thing didn'twork."
"I'd merely say that we four are coming up--that's all."
Stoughton grinned a formidable grin in which there was a show of teethand an outthrust jaw.
"That's enough, he'll know."
They went off together, but rather silently, to lunch. On the way tothe street Stoughton asserted several times aloud, and with completeconviction, that he would be damned, while the rest began to experiencea carefully concealed regret for the victim of their mission. At theclub they sat aimlessly and played with their food, conscious that theywere observed and known by all as the insiders in one of Philadelphia'slargest investments. Then, too, they learned that that morning thestock of the Consolidated companies had leaped forward in one of thoseunexpected boosts for which it was noted. Wimperley and the rest ofthem had never gambled in it, but time and time again it moved asthough animated by the spread of secret and definite information. Justas they were about to rise Birch leaned forward and began to arrangepepper pots and salt cellars in a semi-symmetrical design.
"This," he said, "is all right and that, and that. These are out ofthe question. You get me?"
The others nodded.
"No blast furnaces," he went on almost inaudibly. "No railway--nofurther capital expenditure--and then we reach the melon of dividend,"here he touched his untasted cantaloupe.
Now, just at this moment, Wimperley nodded energetically and laughedoutright, whereupon a man whose name was Marsham, who sat at anadjoining table, turned--for Wimperley did not often laugh--and sawBirch's long finger resting on the melon, and, since Marsham was,without the knowledge of the others, one of the largest operators, inConsolidated stock, that stock took a further jump just half an hourlater, and all through Pennsylvania there were farmers, mechanics,country doctors and storekeepers who read the news and rejoicedexceedingly thereat.
The others went their way, and Wimperley walked back to his officeimmersed in profound contemplation. Feelings of personal injury weremixed with those of apprehension. How would the affair proceed afterClark had taken with him his unrivaled and intimate knowledge of theworks; for, and in spite of all the dictates of prudence, it seemedimpossible to think of the vast enterprise at St. Marys without itscentral pivot.