"Devil take Worthington," ground out Brainard, gripping the arms of his chair. "For weeks I have suspected him. They have been too clever for me. Constance, while I have been going around laying myself open to discovery, Sybil has played a cool and careful game."
He was pacing the floor.
"So--that"s the plan. Hold back, keep the stock up until they get started. Then let it go down until I"m forced to sell out at a loss, buy it back cheap, and control the reorganization. Well, I haven"t control now, alone. I wish I did have. But neither have they. The public owns the stock now. I need it. Who"ll get it first--that"s the question!"
He was thinking rapidly.
"If you could do a little bear manipulation yourself," she suggested.
"That might get the public scared. You could get enough to control, perhaps, then. They wouldn"t dare sell--or if they did they would weaken their own control. Either way, you get them, going or coming."
"Exactly what I was thinking. Play their own game--ahead of them--accelerate it."
It was just after the lunch hour that Constance resumed her place at her desk with the receiver at her ear.
There were voices again in the board room.
"My G.o.d, Sheppard, what do you think? Someone is selling Motors--five points off and still going down."
"Who is it? What shall we do?"
"Who! Brainard, of course. Some one has peached. What are you going to do?"
"Wait. Let"s call up the News Agency. h.e.l.lo--yes--what? Unofficial rumor of prosecution of Motors by the government--large selling orders placed in advance. The deuce--say, we"ll have to meet this or--"
"Meet nothing. It"s Brainard. He"s going down in a big crash. We pour our money into his pockets now and let him sell at the top and grab back control with OUR money? Not much. I sell, too."
Already boys were on the street with extras crying the great crash in Motors. It was only a matter of minutes before all the news reading public were thoroughly scared at the apparently bursting bubble. Shares were dug up in small lots, in huge blocks and slammed on the market for what they would bring. All day the pounding went on. Thousands of shares were poured out until Motors which had been climbing toward par in the neighborhood of 79 had declined forty points. Brainard had jumped in first and had realized the top price for his holdings.
Yet during all the wild scenes when the telephone was ringing insistently for him, Brainard, having set the machinery in motion and having been ostentatiously in the office when it started in order to avert suspicion, could not now be found.
The market had closed and Constance was reading the account of the collapse as it was interpreted in the Wall Street editions of the papers, when the door opened and Brainard entered.
"This has been a good day"s work, Constance," he said, flinging himself into a chair.
"Yes, I was just reading of it in the papers. The little microphone has put an entirely new twist on affairs. And the best of it is that the financial writers all seem to think it was planned by Worthington and the rest."
"Oh, hang Worthington--hang Motors. THAT is what I meant."
He slapped down a packet of letters on the desk.
"You--you found them?" gasped Constance. She looked at him keenly. It was evident that a great weight had been taken off his mind.
"Yes indeed. I knew there was only one place where she would put them--in her safe with her jewels. She would think I would never suspect that she had them and, besides, she had the combination changed. I went up to the house this afternoon when she was out. I had an expert with me. He worked two hours, steady,--but he opened it. Here they are. Now for the real game."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I noticed the name of the manufacturer on your microphone.
I have had one installed in the room which she uses most of all. The wires run to the next house where I"ve hired an apartment. I intend to "listen in" there. I"ll get this Worthington--yet!"
That night Constance and Brainard sat for hours in the empty apartment patiently waiting for word over the microphone.
At last there was a noise as of a door opening.
"Show them in here."
"Sybil," whispered Brainard as if perhaps she might even hear.
Then came more voices.
"Worthington and Drummond," he added. "They suspect nothing yet."
"Drummond knows this Dunlap woman," said Worthington.
The detective launched forth in a tirade against Constance.
"But she is clever, Drummond. You admit that."
"Clever as they make "em."
"You will have her shadowed?"
"Every moment, Mrs. Brainard."
"What"s all this about the panic in Motors, Lee?"
"Some other time, Sybil, not now. Drummond, what do people say?"
Drummond hesitated.
"Out with it, man."
"Well, Mr. Worthington, it is said you started it."
"The deuce I did. But I guess Sheppard and I helped it along. We"ll go the limit, too. After all, it had to come. We"ll load up after it reaches the bottom."
The voices trailed off.
"Good night, Mrs. Brainard."
"Good night, Mr. Drummond. That was what I wanted to know." A pause.
"Lee, how can I ever thank you?"
A sound suspiciously like a kiss came over the wire. Brainard clenched his fist.
"Good night, Sybil. I must go now--" Again the voices trailed off.
It was several minutes before Brainard spoke. Then it was that he showed his wonderful power of concentration.