Chapter IX: Part VI (1)

When Stephen W. Harker of Harker & Pentecost returned from Pittsburgh, where he’d been “planting” for a nice little Gasoline Substitute Swindle (stock selling, of course—that was his department) and had sat in for an hour with Pentecost, getting the details of the extraordinary Haworth device and the elaborate scheme his partner had evolved for its exploitation, he vehemently refused to have anything to do with it. Not for by George and all hell was he going to put his head in a noose like that when he had a nice safe little business that was raking it in as fast as he wanted it.

“You got me going once when you had the firm into that damned Folsam affair—you know the one—came out his wife had hit him with something in his tea. You’d got a grip some way so you could hold it back an’ play it. I dipped in with you an’ no complaint at the time. But now I’ll tell you _that_ was too close for me and this time you’re going to jump plumb into the middle of the shake-off! You must be dippy! They’ll get you sure! Anyways, you can count me good an’ out.”

Pentecost sat toadlike, silent, regarding Harker with bulging, half-closed eyes.

“Now hook to this,” Harker went on; “if the turn is against you and they’re fixing you for the clamps, I back your play to ooze out of anything. But I get loose teeth if I mix in with those little sports that look like raspberry tarts to you. Now this Haworth layout—it looks to me like a frolic with the undertaker; but if you like it for yourself, go to it!”

“I’ve gone to it,” Pentecost murmured in a careless sort of way; “and I play it under the firm name.”

“But my God—wait! That gets _me_ in!”

“Why, so it does!”

“What are you doing, dragging me into a play whether I want it or not?”

“Can that!” Pentecost flashed sudden fire for an instant. “Do you think I planned this damned firm to keep you under glass?”

There was a short pause and Pentecost’s blaze-out subsided.

After a while Harker spoke in another tone, now petulant and pleading. “You going to jam me up against that layout an’ nothing to say?”

“You can make your getaway now.”

“Jump the firm?”

“Why not? In that case, jump while the jumping’s good.”

Harker, on that, said no more. He’d go a long way before dropping the partnership. It wasn’t alone losing the tidy and “classy” business as it was now run through Pentecost’s putting it on a straight-play basis, but even more than that he appreciated the association with this marvelous operator. It gave him the feeling of trailing along with a giant, a super-sharp, a past master of crookedness. He gave the matter of the Haworth enterprise deep thought, and by noon of the following day had decided to play in on it, saying to himself that he’d bar worrying by putting his trust in Pentecost.

On the afternoon of the same day that Mr. Harker declared himself in on the West Roxbury undertaking, both members of the firm embarked on a steamer of the Metropolitan Line for Boston. The boat was the _North Land_ and this line was the “all-the-way-by-water” route, the steamers after traversing Long Island and Block Island Sounds and Buzzards Bay, passing through the Cape Cod Canal into Barnstable Bay, and thence through Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bay into Boston Harbor.

It was the fourth day after Pentecost’s visit to the Cripps mansion and the firm was proceeding to Boston as agreed, in order to discuss with Haworth various points of the contract—the amount to be paid down, the delivery of the machine, and other matters connected with the sale—so that the papers could be drawn up ready for signature on the day the option expired.

Mr. Pentecost had already accomplished a great deal, having got in reports from his men (if it was ordinary business you’d call them correspondents) in all the large cities, and also having come to the determination to carry on the thing himself in such of those towns as he finally selected, instead of selling to the central agency or bureau handling this class of material,—a bureau which he found to be run by “pikers,” mortally afraid to pay big money for big chances. In addition to this, it was safer not to trust them in so ticklish a business. So he had it all laid out, and his own men were already where he wanted them or on the way. He’d sent a couple of his choicest “trusties” over to Boston the day before. Of course the main work was going to be there.

The taking of a steamer instead of going by rail, and also the selection of this particular line, were both essential to Mr. Pentecost’s scheme; and the same thing made it imperative that, following their interview with Haworth, they return to New York by the same boat on which they went over. So important was this latter, indeed, that had they been unable to secure return accommodations on the _North Land_, Pentecost would have postponed the trip until both the going and returning could have been accomplished on the same steamer—he did not care which of the two running on this route it was.

Awhile after the _North Land_ left—they must have been about running out into the Sound at Hell Gate—Mr. Pentecost went to the purser’s window to make inquiries about the tickets for the return trip (he had left the matter to be adjusted when he came on board, merely having been informed by telephone that the reservations had been made), and after finishing with the business remarked jovially to Mr. Lawson (the purser) that that was a damn good picture of a locomotive he had on the wall there behind him. It represented, lithographed in color, a giant locomotive hauling a night express on the New York Central, and so realistically coming toward you that your first impulse was to make one grand hurdle for your life. The purser, pleased at the appreciation, for he had a fad on locomotives (a fact which Pentecost had obtained from the comprehensive report on the steamer and its officers turned in by one of his men), said it was a pretty good one, but he thought the one they got out the year before beat it.

The conversation resulted in Mr. Pentecost’s being invited into the office, and when business at the window permitted the purser showed him other views of locomotives.

Pentecost didn’t stay long. He knew enough not to drive an entering wedge too far.

By evening they had a slight acquaintance with several of the officers, and Pentecost had made a most favorable impression on the head waiter as well—this latter through the poignant influence of an extraordinary tip; and along toward nine-thirty or ten o’clock the purser, with whom he was chatting over cigars, introduced him to Captain Snow, who happened along just then, and the three talked about the canal.

Pentecost made many intelligent inquiries on the subject and Harker came along and listened in with great interest. So that the total result of the voyage was most satisfactory from Pentecost’s point of view. With no hint of pushing or forcing themselves they had a fairly good traveler’s acquaintance with the captain, the purser, and several minor officers of the _North Land_, as well as the head waiter and one or two of the deck hands of whom they’d asked questions. Also the chief engineer, to whom they’d been turned over on expressing a wish to have a look at the “power plant,” as they called it. Pentecost had made this engine room move in order to bring it in casually that they were especially interested in machinery—almost their business, you might say. Indeed, that they were even then on their way to Boston to negotiate for the purchase of the rights in a most ingenious mechanical contrivance, though they weren’t positive of being able to get it. Held at so high a figure. But an extraordinary thing in its way.

* * * * *

The _North Land_ backed into her berth at India Wharf, Boston, shortly after 8 o’clock the next morning, and Messrs. Harker & Pentecost were driven to the hotel they were in the habit of patronizing when there (except at such times as they preferred to have their presence in that town unobserved), and went to the room which had been reserved by wire. Alfred Harker, son of the senior partner, who’d come over on the train that left New York at midnight (there’s an “Owl” in each direction you know), had been waiting for them there since about half-past six in the morning.

After breakfasting together and going over a few matters, the three came down into the hotel office and sat there smoking and chatting. One of the house managers came along. An assistant manager, I believe he was. His name was Tate.

He greeted Pentecost and Harker by name, and Alfred (who hadn’t been there before) was introduced.

“Boston on business?” Mr. Tate inquired, pleasantly.

“That’s it,” said Pentecost; “rather an odd business, too.”

“Not so much the _business_ that’s odd,” put in Harker, “but what it brings us up against. Maybe you can give us a pointer or two. We’re trying to buy a mechanical device—invention, you know—from the queerest duck you ever saw, out Roxbury way.”

“Queer, eh?”

“Just bordering on the lunatic fringe,” Pentecost took it up, “but a crackerjack on mechanics. Got a lot of strange devices in his shop out there; most of ’em no earthly use but marvels of ingenuity, nearly every one. Went out there to see ’em a few days ago—Sunday it was. In fact, it was a Sunday paper put me on to it. Full-page write-up about the chap—pictures of him and all that.”

“Oh yes,” Tate put in. “I saw it—I mean the heading—that’s all I read. Something about a hermit, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Has some ingenious things, you say?”

“Remarkable! No idea I’d find anything we wanted when I saw the tumble-down place; but, if you’ll believe it, he had one of the most novel inventions I ever laid eyes on; in fact, just the kind of thing we’re after. Exploiting’s our business, you know. I got an option on it and we’re over here to get the thing if we can.”

“What’s the man’s name—I forget?”

“Haworth—Charles Michael Haworth, if you want it all. I suppose you can’t tell us anything about him?”

But aside from having caught a glimpse of that heading Mr. Tate had never heard of the man. He assured them, though, that he was going to make inquiries, and if he got hold of anything he’d certainly let them know. They thanked him, and not long after that the three went out and took a carefully selected taxi for West Roxbury.

I don’t want you to get the idea that there were any loose ends about what these super-sharps were doing—not for one half of one per cent. They figured the play to a hair. In this case they had Tate cribbed for a witness.

* * * * *

Although the day set for the visit of Harker, Pentecost, and Alfred to the mansion on Torrington Road was not one of Mrs. Temple’s days _in_ according to custom, but was branded by the calendar as a Friday (which was one of her days _out_) the old woman was there just the same. Since the appearance of Mr. Pentecost at the house nearly a week before she had been obsessed by the feeling that he was working up some treacherous plot against the trusting young fellow in her charge, and she was determined to be on hand to keep a watch on the vicious brute if he came to the house again—as she had no doubt whatever that he would.

But Haworth had taken note of this tendency of Mrs. Temple’s to be present irrespective of her days in and finding her there on this particular morning he had sent the old woman on an errand which would keep her away for some time. So when the party arrived at the house it was he who opened the door.

Mr. Pentecost greeted him and introduced his partner, Mr. Harker, and Mr. Alfred Harker, after which Haworth ushered them into the room on the left. It was all peculiarly quiet and subdued. Few words were spoken, and those that were, in lowered voices. Pentecost took notice of Haworth’s improved appearance—his quiet, steady voice and the absence of the tortured look and the “drowning-man” stare.

After the four were seated there was a brief pause. They seemed weighed down by some sort of oppressive restraint that could almost be described as funereal.

It was Harker senior who finally began the conversation, endeavoring, with an allusion to Boston’s climate, to establish a commonplace atmosphere—though one hardly more cheerful; and Harker junior hastened to his assistance with a reference to his surprise at so rural a section being in the heart of the town. He supposed Roxbury—or was it Jamaica Plain?—might be so considered.

Pentecost turned them to business, remarking that there wasn’t any time to throw away, and that the first thing was to go down and inspect the machine under consideration, so that the Harkers could get a clear understanding of it. Before they did this, however, he would appreciate information as to the whereabouts of the talented old lady he had seen there on his previous visit. Haworth explained that Mrs. Temple had been dispatched on an errand to East Boston and would have to wait there about three hours before the foundry people could get her the article he’d ordered. Pentecost inquired how much time the journey to East Boston and return would normally require. Haworth thought, with the walk necessary when she got there, it might roughly be put at two hours.

“How long ago did she leave?” Pentecost inquired.

“About twenty minutes.”

“An hour and forty minutes left,” and he glanced at his watch.

“Four hours and forty minutes, if she waits there three,” corrected Alfred.

“As you say—if she waits there three,” was Pentecost’s muttered rejoinder.

The four men spent over an hour in the planked-up room, various sounds of clanking machinery and low-toned conversation issuing therefrom. When they finally completed their investigations and were coming out, Mr. Pentecost expressed the wish to see others of Mr. Haworth’s inventions; so the young man, after lighting Mr. Harker and Alfred to the stairway, took him to the large room where he kept his working models. In this way Pentecost got the opportunity of speaking with Haworth alone.

There were a number of matters relative to the exploitation of the invention in the planked-up room that he wished to arrange with the young man personally. Nothing in all this was a secret from Harker, who understood that it would be better for Pentecost to arrange matters with Haworth personally, afterward turning over the results, as you might say, to his partner.

In the course of this interview in the model room Pentecost spoke earnestly for some time. Haworth’s rejoinders were short and quiet, but it was perfectly evident that what he said, he meant.

After several matters had been gone over, Pentecost turned his attention to the inventions he had come in there to see, for his wish to look them over wasn’t altogether a blind. Eventually he came upon one that suited the purpose he had in view. It showed great ingenuity, and it was not patented—two most desirable points.

When the two men came upstairs they found Mr. Harker and Alfred seated at the table in the room on the left, working on the rough draft of the proposed agreement. A sound and businesslike contract with Haworth was of the utmost importance to the firm.

They’d been discussing the matter for some time when Pentecost stopped them with a quick motion of his hand and sat listening. After a moment he glanced at his watch. The time was nineteen minutes after twelve.

“Gave us four minutes longer than I figured,” he muttered in an undertone.

“Mrs. Temple?” from Alfred in a whisper.

Haworth, amazed, incredulous, started up to investigate, but Pentecost indicated that he’d like to attend to it himself. Tiptoeing to the swing door of the butler’s pantry at the farther end of the room, he stood close to it, listening for a second, then suddenly pushed it open and went out, the door closing itself after him. Sounds like the moving of furniture came from the kitchen, and Pentecost soon reëntered as though nothing unusual had taken place. Instead, though, of sitting where he’d been before, he pushed a chair close to the door into the big entrance hall, which door he opened a few inches, and sat in such a position that he could command a view of the main stairway at the farther end of the hall.

“Shall I go on?” Alfred inquired after a moment.

“Why not?” said Pentecost.

Alfred read the draft of the contract, and when he came to the blank left for the amount that Haworth was to get when the agreement was signed, he stopped and looked at Pentecost. The latter said that Mr. Haworth had consented to allow the matter to stand over till the day of signing—nine days from then. However, he would say before witnesses that it would be a figure satisfactory to Mr. Haworth after considering certain facts which he, Pentecost, would then be in a position to give him. “He’s willing,” and Pentecost said it appreciatively, “to allow us that much more time to feel out the market.”

He then went on to tell them that, as a result of a discussion they’d just had in the basement, Mr. Haworth had agreed to another matter to be included in the contract. It was to the effect that, in case the negotiations for the purchase of the invention were successful, Mr. Haworth would sign for a term of five years, to work exclusively for the firm of Harker & Pentecost, on such inventive undertakings as they should designate, receiving as compensation a salary of six thousand a year.

Harker was struck with astonishment at this, but in an instant realized the importance of the stipulation to the firm. Alfred, too, was surprised—though he showed no sign of it. Neither need have troubled to hide his feelings, as Haworth cared nothing about them one way or another.

Alfred was beginning to put away the papers in his document case, when Pentecost spoke of wishing to suggest a method for safeguarding the secrecy of this unpatented mechanism when they had occasion to refer to it in any way, orally or in writing. His idea was that they allude to it as “The Machine,” and in case some allusion to the mechanism was necessary, they should use for that purpose, _as a blind_, some other of Mr. Haworth’s inventions, preferably an apparatus on which a patent _had_ been allowed. “Letters may fall into the hands of outsiders,” Mr. Pentecost explained. “Telegrams and telephonic communications are of necessity known to various persons, and personal conversations are quite liable to be overheard. By using the name and description of some other device these dangers may be eliminated and we will understand what is meant.” He happened to come upon one of Mr. Haworth’s earlier inventions that would very well answer the purpose—a combination gas and compressed-air engine, really a most ingenious thing. They could speak of this as “The Machine” or as “The Gas and Air Engine,” and allude to its construction when necessary. He was very desirous of having this blind used in the contract—for contracts frequently have to be made public and this would make everything safe.

This ended the discussion of the contract. But Pentecost, turning to Haworth, said there was an important matter that he rather hated to speak of, but with an extra-hazardous operation like this it was vital.

“What is it?” Haworth asked, slightly apprehensive.

“I’m going to ask you to give that admirable old lady of yours a vacation.”

Pentecost was taking care to turn away from the slightly open door to the hall while speaking. “You must see, Mr. Haworth,” he went on in a lowered voice, “that it won’t do to have her about for the next ten days. The machine,—by that I mean the one we’re taking—is going to be exposed at the time of its ‘delivery’—perhaps before. She knows it’s in that room down there; you can’t touch _her_ with any decoy. She may not understand machinery, but she’d give it away to others who did.”

Haworth was silent for a moment. A great ache gripped his throat, and he finally spoke in a voice that he couldn’t quite control: “You don’t know how—how true she’s been—how kind! Why she—she’d do anything for me!”

“Yes, my friend, and there’s where she’d play particular hell with us! That old dame’s no fool. And the trouble is, she’s got the idea there’s something going on here and she’s all set to protect you from it.”

“Yes, yes—she’d do that!” Haworth murmured, huskily.

“Not _would_—is now!”

The young man looked at him suddenly.

Pentecost nodded. “In the butler’s pantry there a few minutes ago,” he went on; “slid back into the kitchen as I was going to the door. When I got out there she was hustling up the back stairway. I shut the door at the bottom of the stairs and balanced a table against it. You’ll hear it fall if she tries to push the door open. Only way she can get down is by the main stairway out here. Don’t think she’d care to try a window.”

Haworth was so amazed he couldn’t speak.

“You must see what this means to our end of it,” Pentecost went on. “We’ve got to put up big money in advance and incur enormous expenses before there’s any return, and here’s this old lady in a position to wreck the whole damned layout if she can get her nose into it—and that’s what she’s working for.”

“What—what do you want me to do?”

“Keep her out of the house until the machine’s delivered.”

The young man was silent, staring uneasily before him. In a moment or two Pentecost resumed: “I admire that old lady and I’ve got things laid out for her later where she’ll come in delightfully. But for eleven days she’ll have to disappear—or we must. It’s one or the other, Mr. Haworth. We can’t risk money on a chance like that.”

Haworth nodded. “I’ll attend to it!” he said, hoarsely.

“Right. And there’s only one thing more to speak of—the butler.”

“Butler——” Haworth repeated, surprised.

“The old lady’s going. You ought to have some one here to attend to you. Also, we’d like a man in the house to look out for our interests. Why not combine the two? A butler—a general servant—who’ll take care of you, and on our side see that no one tampers with the lock of that small room in the basement, and a few little things like that.”

“Will you send some one?”

“Not quite that, Mr. Haworth. I know just the man for the job, but I’d like you to get him yourself and leave us out of it.”

“But I—I don’t know. I never had any experience in——”

“Perfectly easy to manage. This young butler I speak of is booked with a first-class employment agency on Forty-fifth Street.”

“New York?”

“Yes, West Forty-fifth. You can write them to send him over. Fellow’s name is Dreek—James Dreek—and if he isn’t out on a job they’ll put him on the next train.” (Pentecost very well knew “James Dreek” wasn’t out on any job, though not from the employment agency, with which concern he’d been more than careful never to have any dealings whatever.) “Dreek can manage the whole place for you—see that our side of it is protected at the same time.” He got out a pocketbook and took a card from it. “Here we are; this is the agency.”

“But I——What shall to say to this—this agency?”

“Here, I’ll do it for you and you can sign it. Got a machine here? Typewriter?”

Haworth shook his head.

“Oh well, wait. Sign your name at the bottom of a blank sheet and I’ll type a letter in above it when I get back to the hotel.”

For some reason Haworth trusted this man implicitly, and after writing his name at the bottom of a blank sheet, held it out to him. But Pentecost didn’t take it.

“Haven’t you got a large envelope or something I can put it in?” he asked. “Just to keep it clean till I get to the hotel?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Haworth, looking about on the table.

“Couldn’t you slip it into that large flat book there?”

“Why no! that’s my——Oh!” He seemed to recollect something and opened the book, which was an illustrated catalogue of machinists’ tools, and placed the sheet of paper on which he’d written, between the leaves.

“Shove an envelope with it, there’s a good fellow. The kind you use for letters.”

Haworth did this and passed the book to Pentecost, who thus got the stationery he wanted without touching it himself or having anyone else touch it after it left Haworth’s hands.

Pentecost said, as he and the two Harkers were preparing to go: “Keep it from the old lady that Dreek comes here on our recommendation.”

“I will,” said Haworth.

“We’re coming back in ten days—expiration of option you know—and can take delivery at that time if the machine’s ready by then.”

“It’s ready now.”

Pentecost looked at him with a peculiar glint in his droop-lidded eyes.

“Then you plan to make delivery on that date?” he asked.

“My God, yes! if I’ve got to wait that long!”

Pentecost regarded the young man absently for an instant, then, with the Harkers, turned away, and the three went down the steps to the waiting taxi.

* * * * *

The firm, with Alfred, had a late luncheon at the hotel, and then Pentecost left the others and walked a few blocks—or what would have been a few blocks in a rectangular city—to one of the largest dealers in “rebuilt” typewriting machines. He asked to see some of the less expensive models, and the salesman brought several, placing them on a table along the side of the wall of the showroom. As it was a busy hour, he left Pentecost to try the lot at his leisure, and went to the customers who were waiting to be served.

Pentecost sat down and began trying the machines in a manner indicating to anyone who noticed that he was somewhat of a novice. But though he was awkward and slow, it didn’t take him long to discover which of the three instruments displayed the most irregularities in its output; and thereupon he quietly gave it a few extra characteristics, slightly bending a couple of the type bars and filing away a part of two or three of the printing faces with the nail blade of his pocket knife. After a sharp glance about the place to assure himself that he wasn’t under observation, he took the signed sheet of paper and envelope from the large thin book in which Haworth had placed them, handling these things with small pieces of blotting-paper folded once and slipped over the edges, so that for the second time that day he avoided contact with them.

The sheet of paper was thus inserted in the machine he had selected (and doctored), and he proceeded to type a letter on it in the space above Haworth’s signature. His inexperience with the typewriting business was still in evidence, for he was constantly stopping to erase or print over, or forgetting to shift for the next line.

There’s only time to give you an example, here and there, of this man’s extraordinary methods of constructing his defenses. He worked far deeper than along the line of the obvious, for his highest satisfaction was to put up barriers against what had never been thought of by police departments, but which he conceived as possible.

After finishing the letter, addressing the envelope, sealing it and affixing a postage stamp by the same blotting-paper method of handling (the moistening of stamp and envelope being his only “touchdowns”—but no system of tongue-prints has as yet been devised), he bought the machine he had been using for nineteen dollars, and took it with him. The sealed letter he had slipped into a larger envelope, again making use of the blotting-paper hold.

Walking to the corner of Court and Sudbury Streets, which wasn’t far, he stopped and, taking out his handkerchief, mopped at his left eye, as if he’d got a cinder in it. At once a man who had been following came and stood at the corner near, but without giving any sign of recognition. It was a busy corner, so that a man more or less stopping there wouldn’t attract attention. Even at that early stage a “trusty” was on the job in case anyone was putting a shadow on him.

The signal was “all clear,” and Pentecost turned west and strolled up beyond the State House to Bullfinch Place. His man, following, joined him in this quiet neighborhood.

Pentecost put the large envelope in his hands.

“Letter inside, stamped and addressed. Get it into the nearest letter box to the house and before eight to-night,” he said, speaking rapidly. “And _keep your hands off it_. Rip open the outside envelope, and let the one inside slide into the box. Here’s a typewriter in this package; take it out and polish it up. Clean all the marks off it. Wrap it up again without touching it. Do you get that? If you put one finger on it after you polish it off it’s you for the chair. The machine’s for Haworth. Take it to him yourself. Tell him I thought he might like to learn to use it. You stand by and get him to try it—tell him you’ve got to change it if not satisfactory. I want his hands on it.”

“I get you!”

And the two sauntered carelessly away in different directions.

* * * * *

When the firm of Harker & Pentecost, together with the son of the senior partner, boarded the _North Land_ late that afternoon for the return trip to New York, they greeted their steamer acquaintances of the previous night pleasantly, though in a manner indicating that they’d had a rather strenuous day of it. Mr. Pentecost alluded to his intention of turning in early. Alfred was introduced to the purser and one or two others as occasion arose, and the three were about for a while, chatting with one and another of the officers.

Beside the Messrs. Harker & Pentecost and Alfred, there were two men on board the _North Land_ who were closely associated with the firm, although giving no evidence thereof. Their business on this trip was to make close observation of certain points and circumstances connected with the steamer and its crew, particularly in the passage through the canal and the docking of the boat on reaching New York the following morning; which business was faithfully attended to, as was also the matter of their making the reservation of the two cabins they were occupying on this voyage for the trip out of Boston ten days later, so that the firm should have no appearance whatever in that transaction, these rooms being 202 and 204 on the hurricane deck—the name of which tends to foster the idea that it was high up among the clouds, whereas there were two decks above it, the promenade and the boat.

The firm members made not the slightest effort to push themselves; they were seen here and there; and after an early dinner together, Pentecost, passing the pilot house, greeted Captain Snow, and the two exchanged a few words through the open window. He very soon left, saying he was going to bed, but hoped to be on board a week later, as he had further business in Boston about then.

Instead, however, of turning in, he slipped down to the fantail, a small deck at the stern just below the promenade. Passengers seldom went there—and, indeed, weren’t allowed on that deck while the steamer was docking or leaving, for the crew worked from there, and it was cumbered with hawsers and chains, capstans, bitts, and other machinery for handling the ship. When she was under way, however, the chains across the passage were taken down. One of his men was on the fantail when Pentecost got there, but no sign of recognition passed between them. The other man was in the forward part of the boat, moving unobtrusively about to see where officers and crew were stationed as the steamer negotiated the canal, which she was about to do. Both men on the fantail made the closest observations possible as she slid quietly through, the passage occupying something like thirty-five minutes, for they had her down to less than half speed. It was dusky twilight when the _North Land_ entered the canal, and quite dark as she emerged at the other end. And when she _did_ emerge and swung out into the shimmering and light-dotted open of Buzzards Bay, Pentecost went at once to his cabin, slipping forward by the outside starboard passage, to the door of the saloon lobby, and from there up the stairway to the promenade deck, thus keeping it nicely in the shade as to what part of the ship he’d come from.

The week that followed was one of hard work for Mr. Pentecost, arranging for the execution of his extraordinary plan of campaign—assembling the parts, as you might say, arranging for “the market” in most of the large cities, instructing his men, and all the while perfecting his defensive system to cover any possible contingency.

For Haworth, after he had finished with the very painful task of asking old Mrs. Temple to remain away from the house until the machine he’d sold was crated and taken away, the waiting wasn’t so hard as it had been, for now he was uplifted by the realization that at last he’d be able to come to the rescue of the one who was dearer to him than his life.

* * * * *

Early one evening, soon after the Harker & Pentecost visit I’ve just been telling you about, he went to see her. He’d been keeping away for weeks—months, it seemed to him—in order to spare her the trying ordeal with Augustus—his drunken and bestial abuse, his threats of violence, that were sure to follow his visits. But now he wanted her to have the comfort of knowing that help was coming—that it would be here in a few days. And it was something he wanted to say to her in person—say with his mouth and lips and eyes and heart and entire being—not convey in the form of a letter, a cold series of words which in themselves meant next to nothing. Making as sure as possible of a time when Findlay wasn’t there or likely to be, he went to the little cottage.

It was a precious visit for them both, though her cough and emaciation and strange pallor with the feverish scarlet flush made his heart stop beating when he first saw her. But it was from that—from the terrible thing it meant—that he could now be the one to save her. And he told her about the invention he was going to sell for a great deal of money, and how after that everything would be done for her—everything—the most wonderful medical care and the most beneficial place in the world. He was magnificently happy in telling her this, and she was quietly elated with him, rejoicing to the utmost of her small strength. But before her happiness could be completed she had to ask if he would be with her, and be made confident that he would. He assured her that it was so, that though he might not be able to go with her when she went, because of the business he would have to finish up, he would come as soon as he could possibly do it—the very minute he could get away.

* * * * *

The steamer _North Land_ upon which the Messrs. Harker & Pentecost had already made two trips—one over and one back—made fast to the India wharf in Boston on the tenth morning after their former visit to Haworth, which brought it to the 30th day of August—the expiration date of the option. The voyage had been quiet and uneventful, the partners not pushing themselves in the least, though enjoying brief chats with some of the officers and having cigars with Captain Snow and one or two others in his cabin after dinner.

When they were asked how it was coming out about the invention they were trying to get hold of—the one they’d referred to on the last trip over—Mr. Pentecost gave them some further particulars about young Haworth and his extraordinary genius; and as there seemed to be quite a little interest in the matter, he briefly described what it was they were trying to get hold of—a combination gas and compressed-air engine. He spoke, too, of an idea they had of trying to get the young inventor on a contract to work under their direction for five years.

Alfred was waiting for them at the hotel (the one at which they stopped before), having, as he had on the former visit, come over by a night train. A heavy mail awaited the firm at the office, with several telegrams from various places and two or three large envelopes registered, all of which had been attended to by Miss Dugas, their office stenographer, who had notified the “correspondents” (as you might call them) in various cities to send letters and telegrams to Boston as per instructions; and because you know the letters and telegrams so sent were bogus, the trick being one among many items in Pentecost’s establishment of their “open work” presence in town, it needn’t lead you to imagine that a single envelope of the lot contained only blank paper. Each one had in it an apparently important business communication relating to one of the three or four legitimate promotions that the firm operated as decoys; and if traced to its source a man or woman would be found who was trying to buy stock in one of their straight companies, or wanting an agency, or with an invention to sell, or that sort of thing. Pentecost left two or three of the best of these letters lying about the room for the chambermaid to turn in at the hotel office when he left. Also, he went to the hotel telegraph desk and asked for a repeat on one of his wires.

After breakfast in the restaurant the three men retired to their room and went into a low-voiced conference for perhaps half an hour.

Then Pentecost went down to the hotel desk, there making inquiry as to a reliable trucking concern that could handle a heavy piece of machinery he wanted hauled from West Roxbury to one of the freight stations for Jersey City. Proceeding by taxi to one that the information clerk looked up for him, he arranged for one of their heavy trucks and a moving apparatus and plenty of men to call for the machine on the following day, giving them an order on Haworth and full shipping instructions. Having done this, he rejoined the Harkers.

And about twenty minutes before eleven the three came out of the hotel and, entering a large car which had been waiting for them, were driven away. No slipping out on the quiet. All open and aboveboard.

Harker rang the bell at the mansion, and James Dreek opened the door. He was an ideal servant in both appearance and behavior. When Harker inquired if Mr. Haworth was at home, Dreek asked what names he should give, and upon being told—with the further information that they’d come by appointment—he begged pardon and showed them in at once, saying Mr. Haworth was expecting them.

The great entrance hall showed a marked change since their visit of ten days before. Several worn chairs stood about and a long table was pushed up against the north wall—doubtless stuff that wouldn’t sell and had been stored in other rooms or the attic. But the most noticeable thing in the place was a huge edifice in the form of a crate, measuring something like five feet in height. Between the slats and timbers of this enormous cage could be seen machinery of heavy build, and such parts as were discernible plainly indicated to a person of sufficient mechanical enlightenment that it was an engine of some kind.

Pentecost walked over to the great slatted box and glanced at what was visible within, then followed the two others of his party, who had gone into the room on the left,—the door of which James Dreek was holding open for him.

Haworth was shaking hands with Harker and Alfred as he entered, and he did the same with Pentecost as he approached; and as the latter asked him how he was feeling, the faint smile that meant so much lighted his face for an instant as he answered in a low voice, “Rather worn-out waiting, Mr. Pentecost.”

“We had to take all the time the option allowed us, Mr. Haworth, but we’re here within the limit and can go on whenever you say the word.”

“Consider the word said,” was Haworth’s quiet answer.

Upon which Mr. Harker took the papers from a document case and tossed them on the table.

The contract, though not long, took some little time to go through, for Harker was at pains to explain each point; and you could see that Haworth was growing restless and was eager to come to the clause dealing with the amount of money which the firm was to pay him.

When Harker—it was toward the end—read out that the amount to be paid to the party of the first part upon the signing of this contract was the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, and was going on with slight acceleration of speed to the next clause, Haworth said, very quietly: “Wait a minute, please. That’s a mistake.”

“Mistake? How so?” from Harker—simulating surprise.

“You said fifteen thousand. It should be forty-five.”

What might be called a telling pause followed, the idea being that the partners were struck dumb with astonishment.

“Forty-five what?” Harker finally managed to inquire.

“Thousand,” Haworth answered in his gentle voice.

“Where in God’s name did you get the notion that we are going to give you such a figure as that? Why you’re crazy! We never agreed to any such ridiculous price—never in this world!”

“Excuse me. Your partner”—indicating Pentecost—“said the amount would be one that was satisfactory to me. That’s the one that is. I’ve found I need it.”

“Mr. Haworth”—Harker spoke with quiet and pleading earnestness—“let’s be reasonable about this. The amount you name is far beyond what we’re able to pay. We couldn’t touch it. If that’s the figure you’re going to insist on, it’s only a dirty waste of time for us to go on talking. We’re through—and the whole thing stops right here!”

“No—it doesn’t stop! I know the idea’s good—you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t—and if you can’t give me as much as that, I can find someone who will!”

The two super-sharps of the firm, born gamblers both, were entirely aware that Haworth meant precisely what he said, no thought of bluffing having a place in his system. They argued about it for some little time—which is to say, Harker did, for Haworth said nothing, merely shaking his head a little now and then in refusal of some offer or suggestion; and when Harker, driven to his last play, stated that all the money they’d brought with them was twenty-five thousand, the young man merely asked him how long it would take to get the rest.

“Then you won’t accept this twenty-five?” Harker’s tone had now a definite finality in it, carrying the idea that he was giving Haworth his last chance. But the young man shook his head again.

It was here that Pentecost, who hadn’t joined in the discussion, came forward. He said he had one proposal to make. It was quite true the firm had brought only twenty-five thousand, but he himself had in his possession the sum of ten thousand, which he’d intended using in the liquidation of a stock transaction. But he was so anxious to have the deal go through that he would add this ten thousand to the firm’s twenty-five, and they would then be able to offer Mr. Haworth thirty-five thousand in cash, and in addition to that would agree to pay him or whomsoever he might designate as his agent, an amount equal to one-fifth of whatever profit they were able to make on the handling of the enterprise.

I’m giving you this little episode in some detail because it was certainly odd to see such a simple, almost childlike person as Charles Michael Haworth putting it all over a brace of about the most consummate swindlers that ever adorned the criminal contingent, and doing it without an idea that he was making any play at all.

As to this new proposition of accepting one-fifth share of the profits in place of ten thousand of the cash price which he had fixed upon, he considered it a few moments and then turned to Pentecost.

“Will you attend to this yourself?” he asked.

“Yes—I will.”

The young man sat looking steadily at Mr. Pentecost for some little time, his calm penetrating gaze seeming to search for something. Then he turned away and indicated that he would agree to the arrangement proposed.

Harker had been fuming to himself over his partner’s enormous offer, but Pentecost, with a peculiar twist of his hand as he looked at his wrist watch, put it across to him that the game was so fixed they couldn’t lose. Harker’s experience with this same signal in former operations led him to infer that it didn’t matter what they paid, as they’d get it back. He took out his fountain pen and wrote into the contract the thirty-five thousand and the one-fifth share of profits.

After both parties to the agreement had duly written their names, James Dreek was called in to sign as one witness, with Alfred Harker as the other, thus making the thing complete and duly executed. It was in duplicate—one copy for Haworth, the other for the firm.

After the signing, with only a wait until Dreek had left the room, Mr. Harker, with some difficulty, got out the bunch of money from the document case and passed it over to Alfred. At the same time Pentecost approached the table, and saying, “There’s mine,” tossed a roll of bills on it. This payment in cash had been insisted on by Haworth from the very beginning.

Alfred counted out the thirty-five thousand, which was in century notes, on the table. The separate piles of a thousand each were deftly stacked in one, and this was pushed nonchalantly across the table to Haworth. He fussed with it rather helplessly a moment.

“Like to have ’em riffled again with the brakes on?” Alfred was an expert bill shifter and had snapped ’em off like the flutter of a humming bird’s wings.

“Yes, please.” Haworth watched intently while the lightfingered youth dealt each bill off the pack so slowly and carefully that it could be seen and noted as it fell on the pile before him.

When the recount was finished, Haworth muttered a “thank you,” and signed the receipt which Harker, mumbling something about its being “a cash transaction, you know,” pushed over to him.

At that moment, Pentecost, turning from the money count, caught sight of James Dreek going through the swing door into the butler’s pantry at the farther end of the room.

“How the hell did _he_ get here?” Pentecost demanded in a sharp, rasping whisper the instant the door swung to.

“Who?” Haworth asked with a glance about.

“That young butler of yours. He had his lamps on that stack of yellows on the table.”

“You got him in yourself,” Haworth answered, “to sign as a witness.”

“He went out again!” (Still in the guttural whisper.) “We waited for that before we slid the boodle out on the table.”

“You said he was all right, didn’t you?”

“All the same, you want to be a little careful with that bunch of money!” And he moved noiselessly to the door which had closed after Dreek’s exit, and listened with his ear close against it.

Appearing to be no more than half satisfied, he returned to the others and for an hour they discussed various points such as Haworth’s wishes regarding future payments, the taking of the machine the next day by the trucking firm, and the actual time of what was referred to by them as “delivery of the goods.” These things settled, Pentecost expressed the wish to take a look around the basement. Haworth went with him to the place where the planked-up room had been. Not only was it no longer there, but no evidence existed of its having been there. The timbers and flooring above the place where it had been built in showed no nail marks or abrasions of any kind and were grimy and darkened by age.

Having examined the place and its vicinity with the utmost care, using for this the small electric torch he always carried, Pentecost led the way into what had been the machine shop, and closed the door. There he went over several important matters which he preferred to discuss with Haworth alone. They conversed earnestly for a while, and then left the basement together by the door opening to stone steps leading up to the grounds at the rear of the house.

Mr. Pentecost made a surreptitious examination of this door and the route by which they reached it, while Haworth was setting the lamp on the cellar stairs, after extinguishing it. The two then went out to the old barn not far in the rear, and looked about there for a while. After that they went toward the house again.

Haworth had been carrying the big bunch of money in his clothes all this while, part in one pocket and part in another, and Pentecost, appearing to notice this for the first time, begged him to go in and put it somewhere where it would be safe. He said he’d walk about a bit for the air and would be with him in a few minutes. So Haworth left him and went in.

Pentecost now gave the house (outside) and its surroundings his full attention, especially as to the windows of the room on the left with their vine-covered shutters, and the character of the ground and shrubbery beneath them. It took him but a few moments to get all the information he needed as to the walls and foundation and roof overhang, together with other details that might come in, and lastly he took a look at the great elm trees in front and the “lay” of the ground in the rear.

He reëntered the house by the basement door through which he and Haworth had come out, and James Dreek was waiting for him in a corner of the cellar.

“Old woman?” Pentecost asked in a whisper.

“Outside,” was the answer. “Watches all day from a distance. Nights in the bushes close under the side windows.”

“We can use her!” And he gave Dreek whispered directions, after which he rejoined the others in the room on the left.

Harker and Alfred were ready to go—indeed eager to, for it hadn’t been an easy quarter of an hour for them. They rose rather suddenly when Pentecost came in, and the three moved toward the door murmuring the ordinary phrases of leave-taking.

Haworth had taken the bulky bunches of money out of his pockets and put them together on the table, and as Pentecost and the two Harkers saw him last he was standing there with one hand resting on them. He made no move to go with them to the door.

* * * * *

Besides the Messrs. Harker & Pentecost and Alfred, there were on board the steamer _North Land_ when she left the India wharf that same afternoon, a number of persons who were more or less concerned in the business of the firm, yet, as you need hardly be told, giving no indication that such was the case. Not only were cabins 202 and 204 on the hurricane deck occupied by Pentecost’s men as before, but 200, 201, 203, and 205 were also held, though only two of these were occupied. Thus, if you should happen to examine a chart of the boat, you would see that the firm commanded both port and starboard approaches to the fantail.