Chapter 38. A Conversation About Stock

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXXVIII. A CONVERSATION ABOUT STOCK

The case against Durand was pigeon-holed by the district attorney without much regret. All through the underworld where his influence had been strong, it was known that Jerry had begged off. He was discredited among his following and was politically a down-and-outer. But he knew too much to permit him to be dragged into court safely. With his back to the wall he might tell of many shady transactions implicating prominent people. There were strong influences which did not want him pressed too hard. The charge remained on the docket, but it was set back from term to term and never brought to trial.

Colin Whitford found his attention pretty fully absorbed by his own affairs. Bromfield had opened a fight against him for control of the Bird Cage Company. The mine had been developed by the Coloradoan from an unlikely prospect into a well-paying concern. It was the big business venture of his life and he took a strong personal interest in running it. Now, because of Bromfield's intention to use for his own advantage the proxies made out in his name, he was likely to lose control. With Bromfield in charge the property might be wrecked before he could be ousted.

"Dad's worrying," Beatrice told Lindsay. "He's afraid he'll lose control of the mine. There's a fight on against him."

"What for? I thought yore father was a mighty competent operator. Don't the stockholders know when they're well off?"

She looked at him enigmatically. "Some one he trusted has turned out a traitor. That happens occasionally in business, you know."

It was from Colin himself that Clay learned the name of the traitor.

"It's that fellow Bromfield," he explained. "He's the secretary and second largest stockholder in the company. The annual election is to be to-morrow afternoon. He's got me where the wool's short. I was fool enough to ask the smaller stockholders to make out their proxies in his name. At that time he was hand in glove with us. Now I'm up against it. He's going to name the board of directors and have himself made president."

Clay ventured on thin ice. The name of Bromfield had not been mentioned to him before in the last twenty-four hours by either Beatrice or her father. "Surely Bromfield wouldn't want to offend you."

"That's exactly what he would want to do."

"But--"

"He's got his reasons."

"Isn't there some way to stop him, then?"

"I've been getting a wrinkle trying to figure out one. I'd certainly be in your debt if you could show me a way."

"When is the election?"

"At three o'clock."

"Where?"

"At the company offices."

"Perhaps if I talked with Bromfield--"

Whitford laughed shortly. "I'd talk an arm off him if it would do any good. But it won't. He's out for revenge."

Clay's eyes alighted swiftly on the older man. They asked gravely a question and found an answer that set his heart singing. Beatrice had broken her engagement with Bromfield.

"He won't do, Clay. He's off color." Whitford did a bit of mental acrobatics. "Why do you suppose he took you to Maddock's?"

Again Lindsay's appraising gaze rested on his friend. "I've never worked that out to my satisfaction. It wasn't the kind of place he would be likely to go for pleasure. But I don't think he'd arranged a trap for me, if that's what you mean. It doesn't look reasonable that he would want me killed."

Whitford told him all he knew about the affair. The story told him banished any doubts Clay may have had about a certain step he had begun during the last few minutes to hold in consideration. It did more. It hardened a fugitive impulse to a resolution. Bromfield was fair game for him.

It was a little after eleven o'clock next morning when the cattleman walked into an apartment house for bachelors, took the elevator, and rang the bell at Bromfield's door.

Clarendon, fresh from the hands of his valet, said he was glad to see Lindsay, but did not look it. He offered his guest a choice of liquors and selected for himself a dry martini. Cigars and cigarettes were within reach on a tabouret.

Clay discovered that one difficulty he had expected to meet did not complicate the problem. The valet had left to select the goods for half a dozen custom-made shirts, Bromfield explained apologetically, apropos of the lack of service. He would not return till late in the afternoon.

"I've come to see about that Bird Cage business, Mr. Bromfield," his visitor explained. "I've been millin' it over in my mind, and I thought I'd put the proposition up to you the way it looks to me."

Bromfield's eyebrows lifted. His face asked with supercilious politeness what the devil business it was of his.

"Mr. Whitford has put in twenty years of his life building up the Bird Cage into a good property. It's a one-man mine. He made it out of a hole in the ground, developed it, expanded it, gave it a market value. He's always protected the stockholders and played the game square with them. Don't it look like he ought to stay in control of it?"

"Did he send you here to tell me that?"

"No, he didn't. But he's gettin' along in years, Bromfield. It don't look hardly right to me for you to step in and throw him out. What do you think about it, yourself?"

The clubman flushed with anger. "I think that it's damned impertinent of you to come here meddling in my business. I might have expected it. You've always been an impertinent meddler."

"Mebbeso," agreed Clay serenely, showing no surprise at this explosion. "But I'm here. And I put a question. Shall I ask it again?"

"No need. I'm going to take what the law allows me--what I and my friends have bought and paid for in the open market. The more it hurts Whitford the better I'll be pleased," answered Bromfield, his manner of cynical indifference swept away by gathering rage. The interference of this "bounder" filled him with a passion of impotent hate.

"Is that quite correct? Did you buy control in the market? In point of fact, aren't you holdin' a bunch of proxies because Whitford wrote and asked the stockholders to sign them for you to vote? What you intend doing is a moral fraud, no matter what its legal aspect is. You'd be swindling the very stockholders you claim to represent, as well as abusing the confidence of Whitford."

"What you think isn't of the least importance to me, Mr. Lindsay. If you're here merely to offer me your advice, I suppose I shall now have regretfully to say good-day." The New Yorker rose, a thin lip smile scarcely veiling his anger at this intruder who had brought his hopes to nothing.

"I reckon I'll not hurry off, Mr. Bromfield," Clay replied easily. "You might think I was mad at you. I'll stick around awhile and talk this over."

"Unfortunately I have an engagement," retorted the other icily.

"When?"

"I really think, Mr. Lindsay, that is my business."

"I'm makin' it mine," said Clay curtly.

Bromfield stared. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said it was mine too. You see I bought a coupla shares of Bird Cage stock yesterday. I'd hate to see Whitford ousted from control. I've got confidence in him."

"It's your privilege to vote that stock this afternoon. At least it would be if it had been transferred to you on the books. I'll vote my stock according to my own views."

"I wonder," murmured Clay aloud.

"What's that?" snapped Bromfield.

"I was just figurin' on what would happen if you got sick and couldn't attend that annual meeting this afternoon," drawled the Westerner. "I reckon mebbe some of the stockholders you've got lined up would break away and join Whitford."

The New Yorker felt a vague alarm. What idea did this fellow have in the back of his head. Did he intend to do bodily violence to him? Without any delay Bromfield reached for the telephone.

The large brown hand of the Westerner closed over his.

"I'm talkin' to you, Mr. Bromfield. It's not polite for you to start 'phoning, not even to the police, whilst we're still engaged in conversation."

"Don't you try to interfere with me," said the man who paid the telephone bill. "I'll not submit to such an indignity."

"I'm not the only one that interferes. You fixed up quite an entertainment for me the other night, didn't you? Wouldn't you kinda call that interferin' some? I sure ought to comb yore hair for it."

Bromfield made a hasty decision to get out. He started for the door. Clay traveled in that direction too. They arrived simultaneously. Clarendon backed away. The Arizonan locked the door and pocketed the key.

His host grew weakly violent. From Whitford he had heard a story about two men in a locked room that did not reassure him now. One of the men had been this cattleman. The other--well, he had suffered. "Let me out! I'll not stand this! You can't bully me!" he cried shrilly.

"Don't pull yore picket-pin, Bromfield," advised Lindsay. "I've elected myself boss of the _rodeo_. What I say goes. You'll save yorese'f a heap of worry if you make up yore mind to that right away."

"What do you want? What are you trying to do? I'm not a barroom brawler like Durand. I don't intend to fight with you."

"You've ce'tainly relieved my mind," murmured Clay lazily. "What's yore own notion of what I ought to do to you, Bromfield? You invited me out as a friend and led me into a trap after you had fixed it up. Wouldn't a first-class thrashin' with a hawsswhip be about right?"

Bromfield turned pale. "I've got a weak heart," he faltered.

"I'll say you have," agreed Clay. "It's pumpin' water in place of blood right now, I'll bet. Did you ever have a real honest-to-God lickin' when you was a boy?"

The New Yorker knew he was helpless before this clear-eyed, supple athlete who walked like a god from Olympus. One can't lap up half a dozen highballs a day for an indeterminate number of years, without getting flabby, nor can he spend himself in feeble dissipations and have reserves of strength to call upon when needed. The tongue went dry in his mouth. He began to swallow his Adam's apple.

"I'm not well to-day," he said, almost in a whisper.

"Let's look at this thing from all sides," went on Clay cheerfully. "If we decide by a majority of the voting stock--and I'm carryin' enough proxies so that I've got control--that you'd ought to have a whalin', why, o' course, there's nothin' to it but get to business and make a thorough job."

"Maybe I didn't do right about Maddock's."

"No mebbe about that. You acted like a yellow hound."

"I'm sorry. I apologize."

"I don't reckon I can use apologies. I might make a bargain with you."

"I'll be glad to make any reasonable bargain."

"How'd this do? I'll vote my stock and proxies in the Bromfield Punishment Company, Limited, against the whalin', and you vote yore stock and proxies in the Bird Cage Company to return the present board and directorate."

"That's coercion."

"Well, so it is."

"The law--"

"Did you go hire a lawyer for an opinion before you paid Durand to do me up?"

"You've got no right to hold me a prisoner here to help Whitford."

"All right, I won't. I'll finish my business with you and when I'm through, you can go to the annual meetin'--if you feel up to travelin' that far."

"I'll give you a thousand dollars to let me alone."

"That'd be a thousand and fifty you had given me, wouldn't it?" returned Lindsay gayly.

Tears of vexation stood in Bromfield's eyes. "All right. Let me go. I'll be fair to Whitford and arrange a deal with him."

"Get the stockholders who're with you on the 'phone and tell 'em to vote their stock as Whitford thinks best. Get Whitford and tell him the fight's off."

"If I do, will you let me go?"

"If you don't, we'll return to the previous question--the annual meeting of the Bromfield Punishment Company, Limited."

Bromfield got busy with the telephone.

When he had finished. Clay strolled over to a bookcase, cast his eyes over the shelves, and took out a book. It was "David Harum." He found an easy-chair, threw a leg over one arm, and presently began to chuckle.

"Are you going to keep me here all day?" asked his host sulkily.

"Only till about four o'clock. We're paired, you and me, so we'll both stay away from the election. Why don't you pick you a good book and enjoy yoreself? There's a lot of A 1 readin' in that case over there. It'll sure improve yore mind."

Clarendon ground his teeth impotently.

His guest continued to grin over the good stories of the old horse-trader. When he closed the book at last, he had finished it. His watch told him that it was twenty minutes to five. Bromfield's man was at the door trying to get in. He met Lindsay going out.

"No, I can't stay to tea to-day, Mr. Bromfield," the Arizonan was saying, a gleam of mirth in his eyes. "No use urging me. Honest, I've really got to be going. Had a fine time, didn't we? So long."

Bromfield used bad language. _

Read next: Chapter 39. In Central Park

Read previous: Chapter 37. On The Carpet

Table of content of Big-Town Round-Up


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book