Children of the Whirlwind Part 18

All in all she was a healthy, normal, intelligent, unself-sacrificing woman who belonged distinctly to her own day; who gave a great deal to life, and who took a great deal from life.

Often Larry wished she would speak of Hunt. He was curious about Hunt, of whom he thought daily; and such talk might yield him information about the bl.u.s.tering, big-hearted painter who was gypsying it down at the d.u.c.h.ess's. But as the days pa.s.sed she never mentioned Hunt again; not even to ask where he was or what he was doing. She was adhering very strictly to the remark she had made the night Larry came here: "I don't want to know until he wants me to know." And so Hunt remained the same incomplete picture to Larry; the painter was indubitably at home in such surroundings as these, and he was at home as a roistering, hard-working vagabond at the d.u.c.h.ess's--but all the vast s.p.a.ces between were utterly blank, except for the sketchy remarks Hunt had made concerning himself.

Larry had guessed that hurt pride was the reason for Hunt's vanishment from the world which had known him. But he knew hurt pride was not Miss Sherwood's motive for making no inquiries. Anger? No. Jealousy? No.

Some insult offered her? No. Larry went through the category of ordinary motives, of possible happenings; but he could find none which would reconcile her very keen and kindly feeling for Hunt with her abstinence from all inquiries.

From his first day in his sanctuary Larry spent long hours every day over the accounts and doc.u.ments Miss Sherwood had put in his hands. They were indeed a tangle. Originally the Sherwood estate had consisted of solid real-estate holdings. But now that Larry had before him the records of holdings and of various dealings he learned that the character of the Sherwood fortune had altered greatly. Miss Sherwood's father had neglected the care of this sober business in favor of speculative investment and even outright gambling in stocks; and d.i.c.k, possessing this strain of his father, and lacking his father's experience, had and was speculating even more wildly.

Larry had followed the market since he had been in a broker's office almost ten years earlier, so he knew what stock values had been and had some idea of what they were now. The records, and some of the stock Larry found in the safe, recalled the reputation of the elder Sherwood.

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 compet.i.tion 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. d.i.c.k 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, d.i.c.k. 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, d.i.c.k, and quit taking those big chances."

"You've got to take some big chances, Captain Nemo"--d.i.c.k had clung to the t.i.tle 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 d.i.c.k were not in themselves enough to affect a change in d.i.c.k. 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, d.i.c.k. 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 d.i.c.k clapped him on the shoulder. "But I'm all right, too, and nothing and n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+nes. 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 d.i.c.k; 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 d.i.c.k. 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, G.o.d 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 p.a.w.nshop 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 b.u.t.toned 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 p.a.w.nshop door, pa.s.sed 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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. "h.e.l.lo--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 h.e.l.l you want my paintings for?"

"They might make good towels if I can sc.r.a.pe the paint off."