A Captain in the Ranks: A Romance of Affairs

"Oh, well – "

"Hear me out," interrupted Duncan. "These gentlemen have asked me for an opinion, and they are paying me for it. Of course I must, as an honest man, give them an honest judgment."

"Oh, that's all right. But you might be mistaken, you know. You've formed a judgment after a brief trip through the country. That country seems poverty stricken just now, but that's because it hasn't enjoyed the stimulating influence of a railroad. It is a better country than you think, as I can convince you, if you'll let me take you through it in a carriage. We can start at once – to-morrow morning – run out to the mines by rail, and there take a carriage and drive through the country. I've ordered the carriage, with abundant supplies, from Chicago. I want to show you the resources of the country. I'll convince you, before we get back, that the country will build up as soon as the railroad penetrates it, and that there will be an abundant traffic for the road."

"Pardon me," answered Duncan. "I've already been through that region. I've questioned every farmer as to his crops. I've questioned every merchant in every village as to his possible shipments by the railroad, and as to the amount of goods he hopes to sell if the railroad is built. Their replies are hopelessly discouraging. Taking their outside estimates as certain, there cannot be enough traffic over such a line for twenty years to come, to pay operating expenses. In the meantime the men whom you are asking to build the road must lose not only the interest on their investment, but the investment itself. I know all the facts that bear upon the case."

"All but one," answered Tandy.

"What is that one?"

"That a favorable report from you means a check, right now and here, to-night, payable to 'Bearer,' for ten thousand dollars. My check is supposed to be good for all it calls for. You can have it now and it will be cashed to-morrow morning. Here it is. Payable to bearer as it is, you needn't endorse it, and you need not be known in the matter in any way. I'm talking 'business' now."

Duncan scanned the face of his interlocutor for an instant. Then he rose from his seat, and with utterance choked by emotion managed to say:

"I quite understand. You would bribe me with that check. You would hire me to betray the confidence of the men who are paying me a very much smaller sum than ten thousand dollars. You propose to buy my integrity, my honor, my soul. Very well. My integrity, my honor, and my soul are not for sale at any price. I shall make an honest report in this matter. Good-night, sir! Perhaps you will make my excuses to the ladies for not joining them at supper as I promised to do. As for the rest, you may explain to them that I am not such a scoundrel as you hoped I might be."

And with that Guilford Duncan stalked out of the house, helping himself to his hat as he passed the rack in the entry way.

XXII

Under the Honeysuckles

If Guilford Duncan had been a little more worldly wise than he was, he would have gone at once to Captain Will Hallam. He would have told that shrewdest of shrewd men of the world all that had passed between himself and Tandy, and he would have asked Will Hallam's advice as to what course to pursue.

Instead of that Guilford Duncan went at once to Barbara. He felt a need of sympathy rather than a need of advice, and he had learned to look to Barbara, above all other people in the world, for sympathy.

He was still a good deal disturbed in his emotions when Barbara greeted him in the little porch, and it was a rather confused account that he gave her of what had happened.

"I don't quite understand," said Barbara at last. "Perhaps if you have a cup of tea you can make the matter clearer," and without waiting for assent or dissent, she glided out to the kitchen, whence she presently returned bearing a fragrant cup of Oolong.

"Now," she said, after he had sipped the tea, "tell me again just what has happened. You were too much excited, when you told me before, to tell me clearly."

"Well, it amounts to this," answered Duncan. "That scoundrel Tandy – "

"Stop!" said Barbara, in an authoritative tone. "Never mind Tandy's character. If you go off on that you'll never make me understand."

In spite of his agitation, Duncan laughed. "How you do order me about!"

"Oh, pardon me!" exclaimed the girl in manifest alarm. "I didn't mean to do that. I would never think of doing such a thing. I only meant – "

"My dear Miss Barbara, I fully understand. I need ordering about to-night, and I heartily wish you would take me in hand."

"Oh, but I could never presume to do that!"

"I don't see why," answered Duncan. "You are my good angel, and it is the business of my good angel to regulate me and make me behave as I should."

"But, Mr. Duncan – "

"But, Barbara" – it was the first time he had ever addressed her by her given name and without the "Miss" – "you know I love you – or you ought to know it. You know I want you to be my wife. Say that you will, and then I shall be free to tell you all my troubles and to take your advice in all of them. Say that you love me, Barbara! Say that you will marry me!"

All this was in contravention of Guilford Duncan's carefully laid plans, as a declaration of love is apt to be, so long as women are fascinating and men are human. He had intended to put the thought of his love for Barbara into her unsuspecting mind by ingenious "trick and device." It had been his plan presently to escort her to church, to the concerts that now and then held forth at the Athenæum, to Mrs. Hallam's for a game of croquet, to Mrs. Galagher's for the little dances that that gracious gentlewoman gave now and then, even in the heat of a southern Illinois summer. He had even chartered a steamboat, and planned to give a picnic in the Kentucky woodlands below Cairo, to which he should escort Barbara. He had thought in these ways to set the tongues of all the gossips wagging, and thus to force upon Barbara the thought of his love for her.

All was now spoiled, as he thought, when he so precipitately declared his love there in the vine-clad porch.

Barbara was obviously surprised. Duncan could not quite make out whether she was shocked or not, whether his declaration of love pleased or distressed her.

For she made no answer whatever. Instead she nervously plucked honeysuckles and still more nervously let them fall from her hands.

Duncan was standing now, and in torture lest he had spoiled all by his precipitancy. He waited, as patiently as he could, for the girl's answer, but it came not. Her silence seemed ominous to him. It seemed to mean that she was shocked and offended by a declaration of love, for which he had not in any wise prepared her.

But Duncan was a man of action. It was not his habit to accept defeat without challenging it and demanding its reasons. So presently he advanced, passed his arm around Barbara's waist, and gently caressed her forehead, as a father or an older brother might have done.

She accepted the caress in that spirit, seemingly, and then she turned toward the hall door, saying:

"Good-night!"

But Duncan was not to be so baffled. He had blundered upon a declaration of love – as most men do who really love – and he did not intend to go away without his answer.

"Don't say 'good-night' yet," he pleaded, again passing his arm around her waist. "Tell me first, is it yes or no? Will you be my wife?"

The girl turned and faced him. There was that in her eyes which he had never seen there before, and which he could not interpret. At last her lips parted, and she said:

"I cannot tell, yet. You must wait."

And with that she slipped through the door, leaving him no recourse but to take his leave without other formality than the closing of the front gate.

XXIII

Captain Will Hallam in the Game

The next morning, very early, Guilford Duncan's negro servant – for he kept one now – brought him a note from Barbara. It read in this wise:

I wish you would take your meals at the hotel for a few days, or a week or two – till you hear from me again.

There was no address written at top of the sheet, and no signature at the bottom. There was nothing that could afford even a ground for conjectural explanation. There was nothing that could call for a reply – perhaps there was nothing that could warrant a reply or excuse its impertinence. Nevertheless Guilford Duncan sent, by the hands of his negro servitor, an answer to the strange note. In it he wrote:

I have told you of my love. I tell you that again, with all of emphasis that I can give to the telling. I have asked you to be my wife. I ask it again with all of earnestness and sincerity, with all of supplication, that I can put into the asking. Oh, Barbara, you can never know or dream or remotely imagine how much these things mean to me and to my life.

I shall take my meals at the hotel – or not at all – until you bid me come to you for my answer.

Then, with resolute and self-controlled mind, Guilford Duncan set himself to work. He prepared his report upon the proposed railroad extension, condemning it and giving adequate reasons for his condemnation.

He was still indignant that Napper Tandy should have offered him a bribe, and in the first draft of his report he had made a statement of that fact as an additional reason for his adverse judgment. But upon reflection he rewrote the report, omitting all mention of the bribe offer. Then he wrote to Tandy – a grievous mistake – telling him that he had sent in an adverse report, and that he had omitted to mention Tandy's offer in it.

This gave Tandy the opportunity he wanted and Guilford Duncan was not long in discovering the fact. A week later Captain Will Hallam said to him:

"So you've been quarreling with Napper Tandy?"

"Yes," answered Duncan. "He offered to bribe me to make a false report in the railroad extension matter."

"Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"Oh, I didn't want to bother you with a whining. I rejected the bribe, of course, and told him what I thought of him, and that seemed to me enough."

"Well, it wasn't. You ought to have told me. Then we could have made him put his offer into writing, or make it in my presence. As it is, he's got you where the hair is uncommonly short."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, he has written to the financiers, telling them that as soon as they employed you, you went to him and demanded a payment of ten thousand dollars as an inducement to you to make a favorable report; that he refused, and that consequently your report was adverse. They will refuse to build the railroad, but they have written to ask me as to your integrity."

"The infernal scoundrel! How – "

"It doesn't pay to call him names. We must think out a way to meet this thing."

"I'll horsewhip him on the street!" exclaimed Duncan.

"No, don't! That would only advertise the matter and do no good. A man of your physique has no occasion for fear in horsewhipping a man like Napper Tandy, and can show no courage by doing it. The only result would be that people would say there must be something in his accusation, else you wouldn't be so mad about it. You have made a good many enemies, you know, and they will take pleasure in repeating Tandy's accusations. Really, Duncan, you ought to have been more discreet. You ought to have taken a witness with you, when you went to his house for consultation. As it is, the financiers have so far believed in you as to reject his scheme on your report, and in face of his accusation, but he'll do you a mighty lot of damage in Cairo and elsewhere. I don't know what to do."

"I do," answered Guilford Duncan resolutely. "A year ago you and Ober wanted to make me mayor of this town. I explained to you that I was ineligible then, not having been long enough a resident of the State. I am eligible now, and I shall announce myself to-day as a candidate."

"What good will that do?"

"It will give the people of the city a chance to pass upon my integrity – to say by their ballots what they think of me; and, incidentally, it may give me an opportunity to say what I think and know of Napper Tandy."

"I don't know so well about that. You see, people don't always express their opinions by their votes. They let their politics and their prejudices have a say, and you know you have made a good many enemies. Then again, what good will it do you to tell the public what you think of Tandy? That won't convince a living soul who isn't convinced already. The rest will say that you are naturally very angry with the man who found you out – the man from whom you unsuccessfully tried to extort a bribe. You see there were no witnesses present when your interview with Tandy occurred. That was a capital mistake on your part. Then, too, you went to his house for this business, and people will say that that, too, looks bad. You have destroyed the invitation he sent you, and so you have nothing to show that you didn't go to his house, as he says you did, without invitation, in order to extort a bribe. It's a bad mix-up, but for you to go into politics would only make it worse. We must find another way out. Keep perfectly still, and leave the matter to me. I'll plan something." Then suddenly a thought flashed into Captain Will Hallam's mind.

"By Jove! I've got it, I believe. Go down to our bank and ask the cashier, Mr. Stafford, how many shares we can control in the X National – Tandy's bank; he's president, you know."

Without at all understanding Captain Hallam's purpose, Duncan went upon this mission, returning presently with the information that in one way and another the Hallam bank controlled forty-eight shares of the X National's stock – or three shares less than a majority of the whole. He brought also the message from Stafford that as Tandy himself controlled the remaining fifty-two shares it would probably be impossible at present to buy any more.

"I don't know so well about that," said Hallam reflectively. "I've managed in my time to get a good many impossible things done. I'm not a very firm believer in the impossible." Then suddenly he turned to Duncan and fired a question at him:

"Have you a friend anywhere whom you can trust – one not known in Cairo?"

"Yes, one."

"You are sure you can trust him?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"You wouldn't hesitate to put a pile of money into his hands without a scrap of paper to show that the money was yours, not his?"

"I would trust him as absolutely as I would trust you, or you me."

"All right, who is he?"

"Dick Temple – the mining engineer and superintendent."

"Telegraph him at once. Ask him to come down on the evening train. Tell him to say nothing about knowing you or me, but to come to your rooms this evening. I'll see him there."

Duncan took up a pad of telegraph blanks and a pencil. He had scarcely begun to write when Hallam stopped him.

"Never do that," he exclaimed. "Never write a message on a pad, especially with a pencil."

"But why not?"

"See!" answered Hallam, tearing off the blank on which Duncan had begun to write, and directing attention to the blank that lay beneath. "The impression made by the pencil on the under sheet is as legible as the writing above. It would be awkward if Tandy should pick up that pad and find out what you had telegraphed. Always tear the top blank off the pad and lay it on the desk before you write on it."

"Thank you! That's another of your wise precepts. I wonder I didn't think of it before."

"Oh, hardly anybody ever does think of such things, but they make trouble."

That night Hallam, Duncan, and Temple met in Duncan's rooms. Hallam promptly took possession by requesting Duncan to "go away somewhere, while I explain matters to Temple."

When Duncan had taken his leave Hallam plunged at once into the heart of things.

"Duncan tells me you're his friend – one who will stand by him?"

"I am all that, you may be sure, Captain Hallam."

"Very good. Now is the time to show yourself such. Duncan has got himself into something worse than a hole, and his whole career, to say nothing of his honorable reputation, is in danger. You and I can save him."

"Would you mind telling me the exact situation? Not that I need to know it in order to do anything you think would be helpful, but if I fully understand the matter, I shall know better what to do in any little emergency that may come about."

"Of course, of course. It's simply this way. Duncan is so straight himself that it never occurs to him that other people are different. There are some things so utterly mean that he simply can't imagine any man capable of doing them. So he doesn't take necessary precautions. It was all right for him to offend Napper Tandy by doing his own best up there at the mines. But he ought to have known enough of human nature not to put himself in old Napper's power when he felt bound to offend him worse than ever."

Then Captain Will told in detail the story of the visit to Tandy, the bribe offer, the adverse report, and the way in which Tandy had made the whole affair appear to have been an effort on Duncan's part to extort a bribe and betray those who had employed him. Temple readily grasped the situation.

"The worst of it is," he said, "Duncan can't even sue the old scoundrel for libel without making matters worse. Tandy would stick to his story, and as there were no witnesses that story would seem probable to people who don't know Duncan. What are we to do, Captain Hallam?"

"Well, it all depends upon your shrewdness and circumspection. Tandy is president of the X National Bank, you know. That's his club to fight me with. So, little by little, I've bought in there – through other people, you understand – so that now Stafford and I own forty-eight of the bank's hundred shares of stock, though on the books our names do not appear at all. Tandy owns the other fifty-two shares, I suppose, or at least he controls them. Indeed, whenever a stockholder's meeting occurs he votes practically all the stock, for it has been my policy to hide my hand by having the men who hold stock for me, give him their proxies as a blind.

"Now, what I propose is, that you shall manage somehow to get hold of a little block of the stock – three shares will be enough to give me the majority, but I'd rather make it four or five shares. If we can get the stock I'll surprise Tandy out of a year's growth by going into the stockholders' meeting, which occurs about ten days from now, and proceeding to elect a board of directors for the bank. I'll select the men I want for directors, and the board will at once make Guilford Duncan president of the bank, leaving old Napper a good deal of leisure in which to enjoy life. He'll need it all to convince anybody that there's anything shady in Guilford Duncan's character after it is known that Will Hallam has made him president of a bank."

Hallam chuckled audibly. He was enjoying the game, as he always did.

"Indeed, he will. But everything, as I understand it, depends upon my ability to secure the necessary shares of stock?"

"Yes, it all hangs on that, and it will be a ticklish job. Tandy is as wily as any old fox. You're sure he doesn't know you?"

"Neither by sight nor by name."

"You're sure nobody in his bank knows you and your relations with me?"

"Yes, I am certain. I was never in this town before, and as for my relations with you, why they have existed for so brief a time, at such a distance from Cairo, and are so obscure in themselves, that I think nobody knows them. Besides, you might discharge me, you know, if that should become necessary."

"We won't consider that as even possible. Now, as to ways and means. You see I depend upon you alone, and of course you must have a free hand. You mustn't consult me, or Stafford, or Duncan, or anybody else. You are to act on your own judgment, furnish your own supply of sagacity, and get that stock in your own way."

"I'll do it, even if I have to resign from your service and hunt another job. But I must have some money."

"Of course. How much?"

"Well, the stock will cost a trifle over par, I suppose – somewhat more than a thousand dollars a share. I should be prepared to buy a block of ten shares. You see, I might find a block of that kind which the owner would sell 'all or none.' I should have, say, eleven or twelve thousand dollars at instant command."

"All right. I'll have Stafford open an account with you in our bank to-morrow morning, with a credit balance of twelve thousand, and you can check – "

"Pardon me, but if I offer checks on your bank Tandy will suspect our alliance."

"That is true. You must have the greenbacks themselves. I'll send for Stafford now and have him give you the money in large bills to-night."

"Pardon me," answered Temple, "but if I go to him with so great a sum in actual – "

"Yes, I see. That would certainly arouse suspicion. What have you in mind?"

"Why, you or your bank must have banks in correspondence with you, banks in Chicago, or better still, New York?"

"Yes, of course."

"Can you not telegraph to one of them and arrange to have them say in response to a dispatch of inquiry from Tandy's bank, that my credit with them is good for twelve thousand dollars, and that if I wish to make use of some money in Cairo, they will pay my drafts up to that amount?"

"That's it. That will be the best plan in every way. You'll need identification, and I'll arrange that. You're stopping at the hotel, of course?"

"Yes."

"Very well. I'll call by there on my way home, and tell the proprietor, Jewett, to go to the bank and identify you whenever called upon."

"Will he not talk?"

"No. I'll tell him not to, and – well, you know, I'm just now arranging a heavy loan for him. He is paying off the remaining purchase money for the hotel in installments. That's all, I think. I'll send the Fourth National Bank of New York a night message. It will be delivered before banking hours to-morrow morning, but for fear of slips, you'd better wait till noon before giving that bank as your reference. Good-night. Remember that everything depends on you – including Guilford Duncan's reputation for integrity."

Temple sat for half an hour thinking and planning. He was determined to make no mistakes that might imperil success. To that end he was trying to imagine, in advance, every difficulty and every emergency that might arise. At last he rose, took his hat, turned the lamp out, and left the room.

"This is the very toughest bit of engineering," he reflected, "that ever I undertook. Well, so much the greater the credit if I succeed. But I don't care for the credit. I care only for Guilford Duncan in this case."

XXIV

Barbara's Answer

When Duncan left his room on the evening of Temple's conference with Will Hallam, he passed down the stairs and into the Hallam offices, where he still had a little working den of his own, for use when he did not care to see the people who sought him at his law office.

As he entered he found a little note upon his desk, and he recognized Barbara's small round hand in the superscription. Opening the envelope eagerly he read the few lines within:

You may come for your answer whenever it is convenient – any evening, I mean, for I am at leisure only in the evenings. There is a great deal for me to tell you, and it is going to be very hard for me to tell it. But it is my duty, and I must do it, of course. I'm afraid it won't be a pleasant evening for either of us.

There was no address, but Duncan observed with pleasure, as a hopeful sign, that the little missive was signed "Barbara."

"She wouldn't have signed it in that informal way, with only her first name, if she meant to break off the acquaintance," he argued with himself. And yet the substance of the note was discouraging in the extreme, so that Guilford Duncan was a very apprehensive and unhappy man as he hurried to Barbara's home. He still held her note crushed in his hand as he entered the house, and he read it over twice while waiting for her to appear. For this time – the first in his acquaintance with her – Barbara kept him waiting. She had not meant to do that, but found it necessary because of her own agitation in anticipation of the grievous task that was hers to do. She must resolutely bring herself under control, she felt, before meeting this crisis. She even tried in vain to "think out" the first sentences that she must speak. Finding this impossible she gave it up at last, and with all of composure that she could command, she entered the parlor and stood face to face with Guilford Duncan.