Albert Payson Terhune

“ Tiverton would not have given the thing a second glance—a sight-seeing bus being no novelty to him, after three hustling years in New York—but for two faces whose gaze he chanced to catch fixed on himself as he looked upward. The observing faces belonged to two people sitting each on the end of one of the bus' five seats—on the end nearest Tiverton.
One of the two watching passengers was a man; the other, in the seat directly in front of him, a woman. The man's face was of a deathly white hue ”

“ Devereux's eyes shifted from the skyscraper and met Arthur's. In them Tiverton could read both fear and hatred.
“He looks at me as if I were a melodrama hero, and he the heavy villain,” remarked Arthur to Denny, under cover of the badly rattled Tubbs' next announcement. “Why, I wonder?”
“Same reason Sam Tubbs is leery of you,” decided Cross. “They're up to something, and they're wise that you're tabbing their game. Tubbs is afraid you'll report him and get him fired, and maybe prosecuted, too! The other chap's game may be so crooked that it spells jail. ”

“ This struck Tiverton as strange. That two rooms in a single suite should be allowed to go to waste, where room rents were proverbially high, was incomprehensible. A smaller suite would have saved Devereux much money, and apparently would have served his purpose quite as well.
The only break in the four walls' blank space—except for a door—was made by a sound-proof telephone booth. This Tiverton supposed was a relic of some broker or bucket shop's occupancy of the suite. But a second glance showed him a telephone directory hanging on a nail outside the booth. ”

“ Without a pause for breath, or cracking a smile, Denny delivered himself as follows:
“With our specially constructed automobiles of large carrying capacity all interesting parts of New York may actually be seen between sunset and sundown and at a lower rate than would be possible by private vehicle. Passengers are taken whirling through the streets, wonder after wonder piled upon their bewildered gaze, while expert guides and lecturers eloocidate in detail each point under observation. ”

“ But the window sill was rather deep. The prisoner drew himself up to it, and looked out on the chance of attracting by his gestures somebody in one of the windows of the opposite building. But he found there was no “opposite building”; at least that the building just across the street from the Whitelawn was several stories lower, and that none of its windows commanded a view of his.
He opened the sliding window and looked out. The report of a cannon, much less a human voice, at that height, could not have penetrated the roar of lower Broadway. He dropped back to the floor and stood there. ”

“ Genius! For no out-of-towner would doubt the announcement of a public servant like a seeing New York lecturer. He couldn't possibly be in on the plot. You couldn't safely put my name on your door or on the directory board; but a rubberneck-coach announcer served quite as well. And it clinched these people's belief in you. So you gave them free rides, and the lecturer gave them false information—and in return they were going to give you good money. Well played!”
“Who is this man?” angrily demanded a fat country banker with a short, gray chin beard. “What is he driving at?” ”

“ On the front seat. TIVERTON stepped back just in time to score a clean miss for a whizzing automobile. And in so doing he backed so close to a trolley car that was rounding the Twenty-third Street curve into Broadway that he began an involuntary forward jump—one that landed him a few feet from the sidewalk, close to a large object that was long and low and wide and pale green. In appearance it was something between an auto truck and a royal barge; a sort of circus float on pneumatic wheels. ”

“ Well, you're none too big to be ducked now if you talk that way.”
“Why, you big bluff!” bristled Denny. “You never saw the day you could duck me. But we'll let it go at that. I was only thinkin' you'd be ashamed to be seen with me. I might 'a' known better.”
“You certainly might. How has New York used you?”
“It's let me live. For two years as a subway guard, for three more as a taxi shover. Then came the strike, and—well, I got this job.”
“Like it?”
“Sure. I like anything; only some things more'n others. And Sam Tubbs—that's the leather lung-man chap megaphoning—least of all. ”

“ But it was his first experience as part of the spectacle.
“Great old burg, hey?” remarked the chauffeur gruffly, under cover of the announcer's megaphoned speech.
“Yes,” returned Tiverton, amused at the other's apparent belief that this passenger, too, was an out-of-towner who must be entertained.
“Beats Paris or London or Chicago or Denver, folks tell me,” pursued the chauffeur. “There's even one or two folks that's so enthoosiastic they declare, right out in meetin', that it beats North Wilbr'm, Mass.” ”

“ What business? She lived up State somewhere. Presumably, as she stopped at the high-priced Idler during her stays in New York, and made daily use of taxicabs, she was a woman of means. Tiverton knew that on the gullibility of well-to-do single women the swindler often thrives.
In a flash the whole matter was clear to Tiverton—Miss Wesley's calls at the office, Devereux's attentions to her, and all. He was “roping” her into one of his swindling schemes; a scheme to rob her of such funds as the crook might cajole her into putting into some wildcat venture or raw fake. ”

“ In the sound-proof booth. AS usual, in upper stories of office buildings, the window was unlocked. It yielded to his upward pressure. He raised it an inch; then, stooping, put his fingers under the bottom of the sash and lifted it far enough to admit himself. He worked swiftly, lest any one within should seek to bar him from entering. In ten seconds from the time he reached the window he had stepped down into the room it lighted. ”

“ When holdups find a man will fight—and can fight—they don't keep on slugging. They move out—if the street's as civilized as this one. No, son. These fellows were out to get you, not your cash or your ten-dollar watch and chain that you won at the raffle.”
“To kill me?” gasped Arthur, unbelieving.
“No; I guess not as bad as that. They'd 'a' used a knife or even taken a chance with a gun and an automobile skip if they'd wanted to kill you. ”

“ I want to see if Tubbs will mention him among the Cogghall's tenants.”
“He's got to,” declared Denny. “He does, every time. Buchanan's the biggest face card in the Cogghall deck. And it's a deck with mighty few two-spots in it, at that. Listen!”
The announcer pointed to the building. Through his horn he droned a list of renowned financiers who had offices there. The list, as Tiverton recognized, was accurate save for one omission—it did not contain Cyrus Q. Buchanan's name. Arthur leaned nearer to Cross and spoke in a voice even lower than the low pitch in which their talk had been conducted. ”

“ She was still looking at him, neither boldly nor coyly, but with a dawning quiet interest that seemed to appraise and to approve his deep chest and thick shoulders as well as his square-jawed, erect head. It evidently occurred to her that her gaze might be open to misconstruction ”

“ Buchanan, with a grim smile at the pleasantry, “and I'll give you a better job. I like your type of man. Come along, Tiverton.”
“One moment, sir,” said Arthur. “While I was waiting for you I heard enough through the partition to give me the hang of the game, I think. It is the same old trick—using a big man's name to lure a group of rural investors into getting in on the ground floor of a company that doesn't exist, taking up shares, and paying outright for them. Devereux is holding the subscription meeting in there now. He'll cash a dozen big checks to-morrow when the banks open ”

“ That any sane man should pay a touring automobile announcer ten dollars to say that a certain financier had. an office in a building half a mile north of that financier's actual Office, seemed an absurdity. But, remembering the giving of the halved bank note and Devereux's odd behavior when Tubbs made the announcement, he could come to no other conclusion than that the incident had some interesting significance. ”

“ The fight is only just beginning. Tubbs and the others are nothing more than Devereux's tools. He's the man I've got to fight. It's plain enough now. He must have set some one to follow me, the last time I left the sight-seeing car, for he knows my name and where I live. I found that out this evening. And he set these men to get me to-night. They w%re waiting for me to come home. It's all clear. And to-morrow—I'll have it out with him.”
“Artie,” drawled Denny Cross, “you're more kinds of a fool than I thought you were; but you're as many kinds of a man, too!” ”

“ That wouldn't have anything to do with your follerin' up the joke.”
“If it's just the same to you, Denny,” said Tiverton pleasantly, though he reddened as he spoke, “we won't discuss girls we neither of us know. It isn't——”
“That's right!” solemnly admitted Denny. “It isn't. It says so in a book I read once—a book all about folks who wore di'monds to breakfast and looked on a one-million-power plootocrat as a piker. ”

“ I never saw him get a tip, either; touring-bus patrons don't often give 'em. So when I hear the slip and see the tip on the same ride, I put them together. What?”
Tiverton recalled the white-faced man's behavior when the bus was passing the Whitelawn Building; and Denny's mention of the torn bill recalled at once the similar section that had fluttered in the man's fingers.
“The fellow who gave your friend Tubbs the half bill was very pale, wasn't he—with a wild-West black mustache?” queried Tiverton. ”

“ After which he went to the door and called:
“Devereux!”
There was no answer. No sound came from the adjoining “private office.” He remembered Buchanan's injunction to him to be at the financier's office promptly at four, and looked at his watch. The time now was four-five. He recalled Buchanan's intolerance of a tardy employee. There would be a scene. But at the moment this bothered him little. For, if ever man had a legitimate excuse for lateness, he assuredly was the man. ”

“ So both of 'em have cause to shy at you.”
“I know what one of Devereux's games is,” said Arthur. “But he doesn't know I know that. This much is plain: He bribes Tubbs every day to tell a lie about the tenancy list of the Whitelawn Building. It remains to be seen exactly what use he makes of a sight-seeing bus man's misstatement. Whatever the scheme is, it's serious enough to scare them both to know I'm watching it.”
“And it's plainer still that you'd better look out for yourself,” said Cross. “It's dangerous enough to have such men sore on you ”

“ Ever since last night he had realized that a man does not treat his business partner or his confederate with the formal courtesy shown by Devereux toward Miss Wesley in that brief three-cornered interview at the Idler. Her behavior toward him then, and his toward her, had been that of two people whose acquaintanceship is still in the earlier stage. Therefore, Tiverton concluded, her visits to this office were unquestionably on business. ”

“ DEVEREUX & CO.,
Mining Properties.
R. T. Devereux. Cyrus Q. Buchanan.
Tiverton was not surprised. He understood the game now. It was not new in the financial district, and several of its former players were even then enjoying the State's hospitality at Sing Sing, Auburn, and Clinton.
He had often heard of the old scheme, on the part of some crook promoter, to pretend that a financier of note was the “company” or the silent partner in his concern; and by the conjuring power of such a name to reap a goodly shearing of wool from the lambs. ”

“ There's nothing stuck up about her; there never is about the real first-class ones. It's only the second-raters that treat their work-folks like dogs.”
“You—you say you worked for her?” exclaimed Tiverton.
“Sure—in a way. She stopped for a month at the Idler—a little quiet apartment hotel up on the West Side—last year. My taxi was in the rank there. She liked my careful driving, she said. So she hired me pretty near every day. ”

“ I take it she lives somewhere up State or out West, or maybe in Jersey, and just comes to the big town once a year or so. Seems to have enough cash to keep the wolf in the offing. Her name is Wesley—Miss Florida Wesley.”
The car was on its return trip from the Wall Street district; and as Denny spoke he steered it deftly into its harborage. The passengers descended awkwardly to earth. Among the first was Arthur Tiverton. Standing idly to one side, he watched the party of five headed by the white-faced man. As the man stepped down, he brushed past Tubbs, the announcer. ”

“ Buchanan. “He'll be one of the easiest men in New York to find. The Tombs' ledger will be the only directory any one will need to consult for his address. Come!”
He walked to the reception-room door, opened it quietly, and walked in, Tiverton at his heels. The spring on the door closed it behind them.
Twelve or fifteen persons were seated in the room facing the desk at which sat Devereux. Among them were Florida Wesley—the only woman present—and the men whom Tiverton had seen as Devereux's fellow passengers on the two trips aboard the sight seeing automobile. ”