Blindfolded, Earle Ashley Walcott [non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

and after some skilful navigating I found myself at the corner of California and Sansome Streets, before the building through which the wealth of an empire had flowed.

I watched closely the crowd that passed in and out of the treasure- house, and assumed what I hoped was an air of prosperous indifference to my surroundings.

No one appeared to notice me. There were eager men and cautious men, and men who looked secure and men who looked anxious, but neither man nor woman was looking for me.

Plainly I had made a bad guess. A hasty walk through several other banks that I could see in the neighborhood gave no better result, and I had to acknowledge that this chance of penetrating the mystery was gone. I speculated for the moment on what the effects might be. To neglect an order of this kind might result in the withdrawal of the protection that had saved my life, and in turning me over to the mercies of the banditti who thought I knew something of the whereabouts of a boy.

As I reflected thus, I came upon a crowd massed about the steps of a great granite building in Pine Street; a whirlpool of men, it seemed, with crosscurrents and eddies, and from the whole rose the murmur of excited voices.

It was the Stock Exchange, the gamblers' paradise, in which millions were staked, won and lost, and ruin and affluence walked side by side. As I watched the swaying, shouting mass with wonder and amusement, a thrill shot through me.

Upon the steps of the building, amid the crowd of brokers and speculators, I saw a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty or fifty-five, his face keen, shrewd and hard, broad at the temples and tapering to a strong jaw, a yellow-gray mustache and imperial half-hiding and half- revealing the firm lines of the mouth, with the mark of the wolf strong upon the whole. It was a face never to be forgotten as long as I should hold memory at all. It was the face I had seen twelve hours before in the lantern flash in the dreadful alley, with the cry of murder ringing in my ears. Then it was lighted by the fierce fires of rage and hatred, and marked with the chagrin of baffled plans. Now it was cool, good- humored, alert for the battle of the Exchange that had already begun. But I knew it for the same, and was near crying aloud that here was a murderer.

I clutched my nearest neighbor by the arm, and demanded to know who it was.

"Doddridge Knapp," replied the man civilly. "He's running the Chollar deal now, and if I could only guess which side he's on, I'd make a fortune in the next few days. He's the King of Pine Street."

While I was looking at the King of the Street and listening to my neighbor's tales of his operations, Doddridge Knapp's eyes met mine. To my amazement there was a look of recognition in them. Yet he made no sign, and in a moment was gone. This, then, was the enemy I was to meet! This was the explanation of Detective Coogan's hint that I should be safer in jail than free on the streets to face this man's hatred or revenge.

I must have stood in a daze on the busy street, for I was roused by some one shaking my arm with vigor.

"Come! are you asleep?" said the man, speaking in my ear. "Can't you hear?"

"Yes, yes," said I, rousing my attention.

"The chief wants you." His voice was low, almost a whisper.

"The chief? Who? Where?" I asked. "At the City Hall?" I jumped to the conclusion that it was, of course, the chief of police, on the scent of the murder.

"No. Of course not. In the second office, you know."

This was scarcely enlightening. Doubtless, however, it was a summons from my unknown employer.

"I'll follow you," said I promptly.

"I don't think I'd better go," said the messenger dubiously. "He didn't say anything about it, and you know he's rather--"

"Well, I order it," I cut in decisively. "I may need you."

I certainly needed him at that moment if I was to find my way.

"Go ahead a few steps," I said.

My tone and manner impressed him, and he went without another word. I sauntered after him with as careless an air as I could assume. My heart was beating fast. I felt that I was close to the mystery and that the next half-hour would determine whether I was to take up Henry Wilton's work or to find my way in safety back to my own name and person.

My unconscious guide led the way along Montgomery Street into an office building, up a flight of stairs, and into a back hallway.

"Stay a moment," I said, as he had his hand on the door knob. "On second thoughts you can wait down stairs."

He turned back, and as his footsteps echoed down the stair I opened the door and entered the office.

As I crossed the threshold my heart gave a great bound, and I stopped short. Before me sat Doddridge Knapp, the King of the Street, the man for whom above all others in the world I felt loathing and fear.

Doddridge Knapp finished signing his name to a paper on his desk before he looked up.

"Come in and sit down," he said. The voice was alert and businesslike-- the voice of a man accustomed to command. But I could find no trace of feeling in it, nothing that could tell me of the hatred or desperate purpose that should inspire such a tragedy as I had witnessed, or warn me of danger to come.

"Do you hear?" he said impatiently; "shut the door and sit down. Just spring that lock, will you? We might be interrupted."

I was not at all certain that I should not wish very earnestly that he might be interrupted in what Bret Harte would call the "subsequent proceedings." But I followed his directions.

Doddridge Knapp was not less impressive at close view than at long range. The strong face grew stronger when seen from the near distance.

"My dear Wilton," he said, "I've come to a place where I've got to trust somebody, so I've come back to you." The voice was oily and persuasive, but the keen gray eyes shot out a glance from under the bushing eyebrows that thrilled me as a warning.

"It's very kind of you," I said, swallowing my astonishment with an effort.

"Well," said Knapp, "the way you handled that Ophir matter was perfectly satisfactory; but I'll tell you that it's on Mrs. Knapp's say-so, as much as on your own doings, that I select you for this job."

"I'm much obliged to Mrs. Knapp," I said politely. I was in deep waters. It was plainly unsafe to do anything but drift.

"Oh, you can settle that with her at your next call," he said good humoredly.

The jaded nerves of surprise refused to respond further. If I had received a telegram informing me that the dispute over the presidency had been settled by shelving both Hayes and Tilden and giving the unanimous vote of the electors to me, I should have accepted it as a matter of course. I took my place unquestioningly as a valued acquaintance of Doddridge Knapp's and a particular friend of Mrs. Knapp's.

Yet it struck me as strange that the keen-eyed King of the Street had failed to discover that he was not talking to Henry Wilton, but to some one else who resembled him. There were enough differences in features and voice to distinguish us among intimate friends, though there were not enough to be seen by casual acquaintances. I had the key in the next sentence he spoke.

"I have decided that it is better this time to do our business face to face. I don't want to trust messengers on this affair, and even cipher notes are dangerous,--confoundedly dangerous."

Then we had not been close acquaintances.

"Oh, by the way, you have that other cipher yet, haven't you?" he asked.

"No, I burnt it," I said unblushingly.

"That's right," he said. "It was best not to take risks. Of course you understand that it won't do for us to be seen together."

"Certainly not," I assented.

"I have arranged for another office. Here's the address. Yours is Room 15. I have the key to 17, and 16 is vacant between with a 'To Let' sign on it. They open into each other. You understand?"

"Perfectly," I said.

"You will be there by nine o'clock for your orders. If you get none by twelve, there will be none for the day."

"If I can't be there, I'll let you know." I was off my guard for a moment, thinking of the possible demands of Henry's unknown employer.

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Doddridge Knapp shortly. His voice, so smooth and businesslike a moment before, changed suddenly to a growl. His heavy eyebrows came down, and from under them flashed a dangerous light. "You will be there when I tell you, young man, or you'll have to reckon with another sort of customer than the one you've been dealing with. This matter requires prompt and strict obedience to orders. One slip may ruin the whole plan."

"You can depend on me," I said with assumed confidence. "Am I to have any discretion?"

"None whatever."

I had thus far been able to get no hint of his purposes. If I had not known what I knew, I should have supposed that his mind was concentrated on the apparent object before him--to secure the zeal and fidelity of an employee in some important business operation.

"And what am I to do?" I asked.

"Be a capitalist," he said with an ironical smile. "Buy and sell what I tell you to buy and sell. Keep under cover, but not too much under cover. You can pick your own brokers. Better begin with Bockstein and Eppner, though. Your checks will be honored at the Nevada Bank. Oh, here's a cipher, in case I want to write you. I suppose you'll want some ready money."

Doddridge Knapp was certainly a liberal provider, for he shoved a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces across the desk in a way that made my eyes open.

"By the way," he continued, "I don't think I have your signature, have I?"

"No, sir," I replied with prompt confidence.

"Well, just write it on this slip then. I'll turn it into the bank for your identification. You can take this check-book with you."

"Anything more?"

"That's all," he replied with a nod of dismissal. "Maybe it's to- morrow--maybe it's next month."

And I walked out into Montgomery Street, bewildered among the conflicting mysteries in which I had been entangled.


CHAPTER VI

A NIGHT AT BORTON'S

Room 15 was a plain, comfortable office in a plain, comfortable building on Clay Street, not far from the heart of the business district. It was on the second floor, and its one window opened to the rear, and faced a desolate assortment of back yards, rear walls, and rickety stairways. The floor had a worn carpet, and there was a desk, a few chairs and a shelf of law books. The place looked as though it had belonged to a lawyer in reduced circumstances, and I could