"It"s about your stock. I"m sorry to tell you that your oil stock is worthless--part of your fortune is gone, Helen!"
CHAPTER XXIII
HELEN GOES
Helen looked dazed for a few seconds. She stared at Joe as though she did not understand what he had said. She looked at the oil stock certificates in his hand. Joe continued to regard them dubiously.
"Worthless--my investment worthless?" Helen asked, after a bit.
"That"s what I"m afraid of," Joe replied. "Of course I don"t know much about stocks, bonds and so on, but a man said this stock certificate wasn"t worth the price of a good cigar," and he held up the one the hospital patient had given him. "Yours is the same kind, Helen, I"m sorry to say."
"How do you know, Joe? Let me see them."
Joe gave her the two papers--elaborately printed, and lavishly enough engraved to be government money, but aside from that worthless.
Then Joe told of the incident in the hospital--how he had accidentally heard the man speak of the Circle City Oil Syndicate, and the conversation that followed.
"If what he says is true, Helen, your money is gone," Joe finished.
"Yes, I"m afraid so." she said slowly. "Oh, dear, isn"t it too bad?
And I was just thinking how nice it would be if I could increase my fortune. Now I am likely to lose it. I wish I had known more about business. I"d never have let this man fool me."
"I wish I had, too," remarked Joe. "Then I"d have advised you not to risk your money in oil. But perhaps it isn"t too late yet."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we may be able to sell back this stock. Of course it would hardly be right to sell it to an innocent person, who did not know of its worthlessness, for then they would lose also. But I mean the Syndicate might buy it back, rather than have it become known that the concern was worthless. I don"t know much about such things."
"Neither do I," agreed Helen. "I"ll tell you what let"s do, Joe.
Let"s ask Bill Watson. He use to be in business before he became a clown, and he might tell us what to do."
"A good idea," commented Joe. "We"ll do it."
The old clown was in the dressing room, but he came out when Helen and Joe summoned him, half his face "made up," with streaks of red, white and blue grease paint.
"Oh, Bill, we"re in such trouble!" cried Helen,
"Trouble!" exclaimed Bill. The word seemed hardly to fit in with his grotesque character. "What trouble?"
"It"s about my money," Helen went on. "I"m going to lose it all, Joe thinks."
"Oh, not all!" exclaimed the young trapeze performer quickly. "Only what you invested in oil stock. Here"s the story, Bill," and Joe related his part of it, Helen supplying the information needed from her end.
"Now," went on Joe, as he concluded, "what we want to know is--can Helen save any of this oil money?"
Bill Watson was silent a moment. Then he slowly shook his head.
"I"m afraid not," he answered. "Money invested in wild-cat oil wells is seldom recovered. Of course you could bring a lawsuit against this Sanford, but the chances are he"s skipped out by this time."
"Oh, no, he hasn"t," Helen exclaimed. "I had a letter from him only the other day. He asked me if I didn"t want to buy some more stock. I know where to find him."
Once more the veteran clown shook his head.
"He might allow you to find him if he thought you were bringing him more cash for his worthless schemes," he said, "but if he found out you wanted to serve papers on him in a suit, or to get hold of him to make him give back the money he took from you, Helen, that would be a different story. I"m afraid you wouldn"t see much of Mr. Sanford then.
He"d be mighty scarce."
"Could we sell back the stock to the oil company?" Joe wanted to know.
"Hardly," answered the clown. "They make that stock to sell to the public, and they never buy it back unless there"s a chance for them to make money. And, according to Joe"s tale, there isn"t in this case."
"Not by what that man said," affirmed the young trapeze performer.
"I suppose the only thing to do," went on the old clown, "would be to give the case into the hands of a good lawyer, and let him see what he could do with it. Turn over the stock to him, give him power to act for you, Helen, and wait for what comes. You"ll be traveling on with the show, and you can"t do much, nor Joe either, though I know he would help you if he could, and so would I."
"That"s what!" exclaimed Joe heartily.
"I"ll do just as you say," agreed Helen. "But it does seem too bad to lose my money, and I counted on doing so much with it. But it can"t be helped."
She was more cheerful over it than Joe thought she would be. He suspected that she had not altogether lost hope, but as for himself Joe counted the money gone, and it was not a small sum to lose.
"Come on, Helen," he said. "I noticed a lawyer"s office on the main street as I was looking at the parade. We"ll go there and get him to take the case. We"ll be out of here to-night and we can leave matters in his hands, with instructions to send us word when he has the money back."
"And I"m afraid you"ll never get that word," said the old clown.
There was time enough before the afternoon performance for Joe and Helen to pay a visit to the law office. Joe also reported to Jim Tracy, who was glad to see him.
"I don"t want you to get on the trapeze to-day," said the ring-master.
"Take a little light practice first for a few days. And do all you can for her," he added in a low voice, motioning to Helen.
"I sure will!" Joe exclaimed fervently.
The lawyer listened to the story as Joe and Helen told it to him, and agreed to take the case against Sanford and the Circle City Oil Syndicate for a small fee.
"I"ll do the best I can," he said, "but I"m afraid I can"t promise you much in results. Let me have the papers and your future address."
Joe put on his suit of tights for that afternoon, though he did not take part in the trapeze work. He fancied that the Lascalla Brothers were not very glad to see him, but this may have been fancy, for they were cordial enough as far as words went.
"Maybe they thought I would be laid up permanently," reasoned Joe.
"Then they could have their former partner back. I wonder if he"s been around lately?"
He made some inquiries, but no one had noticed Sim Dobley hanging about the lots as he had done shortly after his discharge. Nor had there been, as Joe had a faint suspicion there might be, any connection between the train wreck and the discharged employee.
"I don"t believe Sim would be so desperate as to wreck a train just to get even with me," decided Joe. "I guess it was just a coincidence.
He only wrote that threatening letter as a bluff."