Blow the Man Down, Holman Day [e ink epub reader TXT] 📗

matters are concerned. Of course, it means injunction and long litigation. I suggested assuming liabilities and stepping in, because I am backed by the best admiralty lawyers in New York. I repeat the offer Mr. Fogg made to you."
"You admit that Mr. Fogg made that offer for you or your interests, do you?"
"Well, yes!" admitted Marston. "We allow Mr. Fogg to act for us in a few matters."
"I am glad to know it. There has been so much cross-tag going on that I have been a little doubtful!"
"Kindly avoid sarcasm and temper, if you please! Do you care to accept the offer?"
Mayo glared at the financier, looking him up and down. Furious hatred took away his power of sane consideration. He was in no mood to weigh chances, either for himself or for his associates. He doubted Marston's honesty of purpose. He knew how this man must feel toward the presumptuous fool who had dared to look up at Alma Marston; he was conscious that the magnate must be concealing some especial motive under his cold exterior.
Whether Marston was anticipating blackmail from Mayo's possession of the documents or had hatched up ostensible litigation in order to force the bothersome amateurs out of the _Conomo_ proposition, the young man could not determine; either view of the situation was equally insulting to those whom he made his antagonists.
"Well!" snapped the magnate, plainly finding it difficult to restrain his own violent hatred much longer in this interview. "Decide whether you will have a little ready cash and a good position or whether you will be kicked out entirely!"
"I don't want your money! You're trying to cheat me with fake law business even while you are offering me money! I don't want your job! I have worked for you once. I'll never be your hired man again."
"If I did not know that you have a better reason for standing out in this fashion, I'd say that you have allowed, your spite to drive you crazy, young man."
"What is that better reason?"
"Blackmail! You propose to trade on a theft."
Mayo struggled for a moment with an impulse that was almost frantic; he wanted to throw the packet in Mar-ston's face and tell him that he lied. Again the young man felt that queer sense of helplessness; he knew that he could not make Marston understand.
"Mayo, I have tried to deal with you as if you were more or less of a man. I was willing to admit that my agents had injured you by their mistakes. I have offered a decent compromise. I have done what I hardly ever do--bother with petty details like this!"
That impulse to deliver the papers to Marston was then not so insistent; even Mayo's rising anger did not prompt him to do that. The wreck of a man's life and hopes dismissed flippantly as petty details!
"Seeing that I am not able to deal with you on a business man's basis, I shall handle you as I would handle any other thief."
Mayo turned to leave, afraid of his own desperate desire to beat that sneering mouth into shapelessness.
At the head of the companionway stood half a dozen sailors, armed with iron grate-bars.
"If those papers are on you, I'm going to have them," stated the financier. "If they are not on you, you'll be glad to tell me where they are before I get done with you."
The captive halted between the master and the vassals.
"I'm going to crucify my feelings a little more, Mayo," stated Marston. "Step forward here where those men can't hear. It's important."
Marston knocked softly on a stateroom door and his daughter came forth. She gasped when she saw this ragged visitor, and in her stare there was real horror.
"I haven't been able to sift this thing to the bottom. By facing you two, as I'm doing, I may be able to get the truth of the case," said Marston, with the air of a magistrate dealing with malefactors. "Now, Alma, I'll allow you a minute or two to use your tongue on this fine specimen before my men use their bars."
"I heard what my father offered you. You must take it."
"I have other men to consider--honest men, who have worked hard with me."
He trembled in their presence. Her appearance put sane thoughts out of his head and choked the words in his throat. He saw himself in a mirror and wondered if this were not a dream--if it had not been a dream that she had ever loved him.
He wanted to put out to her his mutilated hands which he was hiding behind him. He yearned to explain to her the man's side of the case. He wanted her to understand what he owed to the men who had risked their lives to serve him, to make her realize the bond which exists between men who have toiled and starved together.
"You have yourself to consider, first of all. Much depends. In your silly notions about a lot of paupers you are throwing my father's kindness in his face!"
He stammered, unable to frame coherent reply.
"Be sensible. You have no right to put a heap of scrap-iron and a lot of low creatures ahead of your personal interests."
There was malice in Marston's eyes. He saw an opportunity to make Mayo's position even more false in the opinion of the girl.
"I'll be entirely frank, Mayo. In spite of our personal differences, I want your services--I need them. I have found out that you're a young man of determination and plenty of ability. I'll put you ahead fast if you'll come over with me. But you must come clean. No strings on you with that other crowd."
"I can't sell 'em out. I won't do it," protested Mayo. He did not exactly understand all the reasons for his obstinacy. But his instinct told him that Julius Marston was not descending in this manner except for powerful reasons, and that he was attempting to buy a traitor for his uses.
"How do you dare to turn against my father?"
"I--I don't know! Something seems to be the matter with me." He wrenched at his throat with his hand.
"And after what I did--my wicked foolishness--those papers--"
"Go on! I propose to get to the bottom of this thing," declared Marston.
The young man drove his hand into his pocket, pulled out the sealed packet, and forced it into the girl's hands. Marston promptly seized it.
"You have not opened it?"
"No, sir."
"I did not open it, either," cried the girl. "I sealed it, just as it was tied up."
Marston ripped off the strings and the wax.
Outside a loud voice was hailing the yacht. "Compliments of Captain Wass to Captain Mayo, and will he please say when he is coming back aboard his schooner?"
The financier paid no attention; he was busy with the papers. His face was white with rage. He threw them about him on the floor.
"Every sheet is blank--it is waste-paper!" he shouted. "What confounded trick is this?"
"You'd better ask the man who gave that packet to your daughter," suggested Mayo. He seemed to be less astonished than Marston and the girl. "I might have known that your man, Bradish, would be that kind of a sneak."
"What do you know about Bradish being concerned in this?"
"I'm guessing it. Probably your daughter can say."
"I'll have no more of your evasions, Alma. I'm going to the bottom of this matter now. Did Bradish give you this packet?"
"Yes, father."
"How did it get to this man here?"
"I gave it to a man named Captain Wass."
Again they heard the voice outside. "I don't care if he is busy! I tell you to take word to Captain Mayo that he is wanted right away on his schooner. Tell him it's Captain Wass."
"The devil has sent that man along at about the right time," declared Marston. He strode to the companion-way. "Inform Captain Wass that he is wanted on board here! Hide those bars till he is below!"
He came back, raging, and stood between Mayo and the girl, who had seemed to find words inadequate during the short time they had been left together.
"I don't believe anything you tell me! There's an infernal trick, here. The papers are missing. Somebody has them."
His fury blinded his prudence.
He strode toward Captain Wass when the old mariner came stumping down the companionway.
"Is your name Wass?"
"Captain Wass, sir."
"You took papers from my daughter and brought them to this man!"
"Correct."
Marston stepped back and kicked at the blank sheets on the floor.
"Perhaps you can tell me if these are what you brought.".
Captain Wass stared long at Mayo, at the girl, and at the incensed magnate. Then he looked down at the scattered papers and scratched his head with much deliberation.
"Why don't you say something?" demanded Marston.
"I'm naturally slow and cautious," stated Captain Wass. He put on his spectacles, kneeled on the soft carpet, and examined the blank papers and the broken seals. He laid them back on the carpet and meditated for some time, still on his knees. When he looked up, peering over the edge of his spectacles, he paid no attention to Mar-ston, to the latter's indignant astonishment.
"Vose and others are waiting for us at the hotel," he informed Captain Mayo, "and it's important business, and we'd better be tending to it instead of fooling around here."
"No matter about any other business except this, sir," cried Marston.
"There can't be much business mixed up in a lot of blank sheets of paper," snapped Captain Wass. "What's the matter?"
"I have lost valuable papers."
The old skipper bent shrewd squint at the angry man who was standing over him. "Steamer combination papers, hey?"
"You seem to know pretty well."
"Ought to know."
"Why?"
Captain Wass rose slowly, with grunts, and rubbed his stiff knees. "Because I've got 'em."
"Stole them from the package, did you?"
"It wasn't stealing--it was business."
"Hand them over."
"I insist on that, too, Captain Wass," said Mayo, with indignation. "Hand over those papers."
"Can't be done, for I haven't got 'em with me. And I won't hand 'em over till I have used them in my business."
"I shall have you arrested," announced Marston.
"So do. Sooner the whole thing gets before the court, the better." His perfect calmness had its effect on the financier.
"What are you proposing to use those papers for?"
"To make you pirates turn back the Vose line property and pay damages. As to the rest of your combination, the critters that's in it can skin their own skunks. I guess the whole thing will take care of itself after we get the Vose line back."
"You are asking for an impossibility. The matter cannot be arranged."
"Then we'll see how far Uncle Sam can go in unscrambling that particular nestful of eggs. I'll give the papers to the government."
"Haven't you any influence with this man?" Marston asked the astounded Mayo.
"No, he hasn't--not a mite in this case," returned Captain Wass. "He needs a guardeen in some things, and I'm serving as one just now."
"You must get them from him--you must, Captain Mayo," cried the girl. "I did not understand what I was doing."
"I will get them."
"I'd like to see you do it, son!"
He turned on the Wall Street man. "I'm only asking for what is rightfully due my own people. I'm a man of few words and just now I'm sticking close to schedule. Until eleven o'clock to-night you'll find Vose, myself, and our lawyers at the Nicholas Hotel. After eleven o'clock we shall be in bed because we've got to get an early start for the wreck