Children of the Whirlwind
He had been known as a spirited, daring man who would buy anything or
sell anything; he had been several times victimized by sharp traders,
some of these out-and-out confidence men. Studying these old records
Larry remembered that the elder Sherwood a dozen years before had lost
a hundred thousand in a mining deal which Old Jimmie Carlisle had helped
manipulate.
Larry found hundreds and hundreds of thousands of stock in the safe that
were just so much waste paper, and he found records of other hundreds of
thousands in safety deposit vaults that had no greater value. The real
estate, the more solid and to the male Sherwoods the less interesting
part of the fortune, had long been in the care of agents; and since
Larry was prohibited from going out and studying the condition and true
value of these holdings, he had to depend upon the book valuations and
the agents' reports and letters. Upon the basis of these valuations he
estimated that some holdings were returning a loss, some a bare one and
a half per cent, and some running as high as fifteen per cent. Larry
found many complaints from tenants; some threatening letters from the
Building Department for failure to make ordered alterations to comply
with new building laws; and some rather perfunctory letters of advice
and recommendation from the agents themselves.
From Miss Sherwood Larry learned that the agents were old men, friends
of her father since youth; that they had both made comfortable fortunes
which they had no incentive to increase. Larry judged that there was no
dishonesty on the part of the agents, only laxity, and an easy adherence
to the methods of their earlier years when there had not been so much
competition nor so many building laws. All the same Larry judged that
the real-estate holdings were in a bad way.
Larry liked the days and days of this work, although the farther he went
the worse did the tangle seem. It was the kind of work for which his
faculties fitted him, and this was his first chance to use his
faculties upon large affairs in an honest way. Thus far his work was all
diagnostic; cure, construction, would not come until later--and perhaps
Miss Sherwood would not trust him with such affairs. This investigation,
this checking up, involved no risk on her part as she had frankly
told him. The other would: it would mean at least partial control of
property, the handling of funds.
Miss Sherwood had many sessions with him; she was interested, but she
confessed herself helpless in this compilation and diagnosis of so
many facts and figures. Dick was prompt enough to report his stock
transactions, and he was eager enough to discuss the probable
fluctuation of this or that stock; but when asked to go over what Larry
had done, he refused flatly and good-humoredly to “sit in any such slow,
dead game.”
“If my Solomon-headed sister is satisfied with what you're doing,
Captain Nemo, that's good enough for me,” he would say. “So forget that
stuff till I'm out of sight. Open up, Captain--what do you think copper
is going to do?”
“I wish you could be put on an operating-table and have your speculative
streak knifed out of you, Dick. That oil stock you bought the other
day--why, a blind man could have seen it was wild-cat. And you were
wiped out.”
“Oh, the best of 'em get aboard a bad deal now and then.”
“I know. But I've been tabulating all your deals to date, and on the
total you're away behind. Better leave the market absolutely alone,
Dick, and quit taking those big chances.”
“You've got to take some big chances, Captain Nemo”--Dick had clung to
the title he had lightly conferred on Larry the morning he had come in
to apologize--“or else you'll never make any big winnings. Besides,
I want a run for my money. Just getting money isn't enough. I want a
little pep in mine.”
Larry saw that these talks on the unwisdom of speculation he was giving
Dick were not in themselves enough to affect a change in Dick. Mere
words were colorless and negative; something positive would be required.
Larry hesitated before he ventured upon another matter he had long
considered. “Excuse my saying it, Dick. But a man who's trying to do
as much in a business way as you are, particularly since it's plain
speculation, can't afford to go to after-theater shows three times a
week and to late suppers the other four nights. Two and three o'clock is
no bedtime hour for a business man. And that boot-legged booze you drink
when you're out doesn't help you any. I know you think I'm talking like
a fossilized grand-aunt--but all the same, it's the straight stuff I'm
handing you.”
“Of course it's straight stuff--and you're perfectly all right, Captain
Nemo.” With a good-natured smile Dick clapped him on the shoulder. “But
I'm all right, too, and nothing and nobody is going to hurt me. Got to
have a little fun, haven't I? As for the booze, I'm merely making hay
while the sun shines. Soon there'll be no sun--I mean no booze.”
Larry dropped the subject. In his old unprincipled, days his practice
had been much what he had suggested to Dick; as little drink as
possible, and as few late nights as possible. He had needed all his wits
all the time. In this matter of hilarious late hours, as in the matter
of speculation, Larry recognized words alone, however good, would have
little effect upon the pleasure-loving, friendly, likable Dick. An
event, some big experience, would be required to check him short and
bring him to his senses.
While Larry was keeping at this grind something was happening to Larry
of which he was not then conscious: something which was part of the big
development in him that was in time to lead him far. A confidence man is
essentially a “sure-thing” gambler. It had been Larry's practice, before
the law had tripped him up, to study every detail of an enterprise he
was planning to undertake, to know the psychology of the individuals
with whom he was dealing, to eliminate every perceivable uncertainty:
that was what had made almost all of his deals “sure things.” Strip a
clever knave of all intent or inclination for knavery, and leave all his
other qualities and practices intact and eager, and you have the makings
of a “sure-thing” business man:--a man who does not cheat others,
and who takes precious care that his every move is sound and
forward-looking. Aside from the moral element involved, the difference
between the two is largely a difference in percentage: say the
difference between a thousand per cent profit and six per cent profit.
The element of trying to play a “safe thing” still remains.
This transformation of character, under the stimulus of hard, steady
work upon a tangled thing which contained the germ of great constructive
possibilities for some one, was what was happening unconsciously to
Larry.
CHAPTER XVI
All this while Maggie, and what he was to do about her, and how do it,
was in Larry's mind. Even this work he was doing for Miss Sherwood, he
was doing also for Maggie in the hope that in some unseen way it might
lead him to her and help lead her to herself. There were difficulties
enough between them, God knew; but of them all two were forever
presenting themselves as foremost: first, he did not dare go openly to
see her; and, second, even if he so dared he did not know where she was.
When he had been with the Sherwoods some three weeks Larry determined
upon a preliminary measure. By this time he knew that the letters mailed
from Chicago, according to the plan he had arranged with Miss Sherwood,
had had their contemplated effect. He knew that he was supposed by his
enemies to be in Chicago or some other Western point, and that New York
was off its guard as far as he was concerned.
His preliminary measure was to discover, if possible, Maggie's
whereabouts. The Duchess seemed to him the most likely source of
information. He dared not write asking her for this, for he was certain
her mail was still being scrutinized. The safest method would be to
call at the pawnshop in person; the police, and his old friends, and the
Ginger Bucks would expect anything else before they would expect him to
return to his grandmother's. Of course he must use all precautions.
Incidentally he was prompted to this method by his desire to see his
grandmother and Hunt. He had an idea or two which he had been mulling
over that concerned the artist.
He chose a night when a steady, blowing rain had driven all but
limousined and most necessitous traffic from the streets. The rain was
excuse for a long raincoat with high collar which buttoned under his
nose, and a cap which pulled down to his eyes, and an umbrella which
masked him from every direct glance. Thus abetted and equipped he came,
after a taxi ride and a walk, into his grandmother's street. It was as
seemingly deserted as on that tumultuous night when he had left it; and
on this occasion no figures sprang out of the cover of shadows, shooting
and cursing. He had calculated correctly and unmolested he gained the
pawnshop door, passed the solemn-eyed, incurious Isaac, and entered the
room behind.
His grandmother sat over her accounts at her desk in a corner among her
curios. Hunt, smoking a black pipe, was using his tireless right hand
in a rapid sketch of her: another of those swift, few-stroked, vivid
character notes which were about his studio by the hundreds. The
Duchess saw Larry first; and she greeted him in the same unsurprised,
emotionless manner as on the night he had come back from Sing Sing.
“Good-evening, Larry,” said she.
“Good-evening, grandmother,” he returned.
Hunt came to his feet, knocking over a chair in so doing, and gripped
Larry's hand. “Hello--here's our wandering boy to-night! How are you,
son?”
“First-rate, you old paint-slinger. And you?”
“Hitting all twelve cylinders and taking everything on high! But say,
listen, youngster: how about your copper friends and those gun-toting
schoolmates of yours?”
“Missed them so far.”
“Better keep on missing 'em.” Hunt regarded him intently for a moment,
then asked abruptly: “Never heard one way or another--but did you use
that telephone number I gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Sherwood take care of you?”
“Yes.”
“Still there?”
“Yes.”
Again Hunt was silent for a moment. Larry expected questions about Miss
Sherwood, for he knew the quality of the painter's interest. But Hunt
seemed quite as determined to avoid any personal question relating to
Miss Sherwood as she had been about personal questions relating to him;
for his next remark was:
“Young fellow, still keeping all those commandments you wrote for
yourself?”
“So far, my bucko.”
“Keep on keeping 'em, and write yourself a few more, and you'll have a
brand-new decalogue. And we'll have a little Moses of our own. But in
the meantime, son, what's the great idea of coming down here?”
“For one thing, I came to ask for a couple of your paintings.”
“My paintings!” Hunt regarded the other suspiciously. “What the hell you
want my paintings for?”
“They might make good towels if I can scrape the paint off.”
“Aw, cut out the vaudeville stuff! I asked you what you wanted my
paintings for? Give me a straight answer!”
“All right--here's your straight answer: I want your paintings to sell
them.”
“Sell my paintings! Say, are you trying to say something still funnier?”
“I want them to sell them. Remember I once told you that I could sell
them--that I could sell anything. Let me have them, and then just see.”
“You'd sure have to be able to sell anything to sell them!” A
challenging glint had come into Hunt's eyes. “Young fellow, you're so
damned fresh that if you had any dough I'd bet you five thousand, any
odds you like, that you couldn't even GIVE one of the things away!”