"n.o.body ever heard of it," a.s.serted Ferris. "It was no doubt organized for the sole purpose of bidding on this job. Probably when you delve into the matter you will discover the fine Italian hand of your political boss."
"Hardly," chuckled Uncle Dan, indulging in his recent propensity to brag on Bobby. "Our local boss was Sam Stone, and Bobby has just succeeded in running him and two of his expert wire workers out of the country."
"If anybody here is the political boss it is Bobby," observed Agnes, laughing.
"I"m sorry to have to suspect him," laughed Ferris. "Well, there is no use crying over spilled milk; but I had hoped to bring Mrs. Ferris out for a good long visit."
"Give your wife my regards, Mr. Ferris, and tell her she must come anyhow," insisted Mrs. Elliston. "Since I have heard that you married the daughter of my old schoolmate, I have been wanting the Keystone Construction Company to have a big contract here more than you have, I think."
"Sounds very nice, Constance," said her husband dryly, "but I doubt if any woman ever wanted to see the daughter of her old schoolmate as badly as any man ever wanted to make a million dollars. Bobby, I"ll make you a small bet. I"ll bet your new construction company is composed of the shattered fragments of the old Stone crowd. I"ll even bet that Silas Trimmer is in it."
"If he is," suddenly declared Agnes, "I"m going to go into the detective business," whereat Uncle Dan enjoyed himself hugely. Her vindictiveness whenever the name of Silas Trimmer was mentioned had become highly amusing to him, in spite of the fact that he admired her for it.
"Go right ahead," said Bobby approvingly. "If you find anything that will enable me to give that gentleman a financial backset I"ll see that you get a handsome reward. In the meantime I"m going to find out something about the Middle West Construction Company myself."
Accordingly he asked his managing editor about that concern the first thing in the morning.
Ben Jolter lit his old pipe, folded his bare arms and patted them alternately in speculative enjoyment.
"I have something like two pages of information about them, if we could use it," he announced. "I have been getting reports from the entire scouting brigade ever since the contract was let yesterday, and you may now prepare for a shock. The largest stock-holders of the concern are Silas Trimmer and Frank Sharpe, and the minor stock-holders, almost to a man, consist of those who had their little crack at the public crib under your old, time-tried and true friend, Sam Stone."
"I admit that I am properly shocked," responded Bobby.
"It hinges together beautifully," Jolter went on. "The whole waterworks project was a Stone scheme, and Stone people--even though Stone himself is wiped out--secure the contract. The last expiring act of the Stone administration was to employ Ed Scales as chief engineer until the completion of the waterworks, which may occupy eight or ten years, and the contract with Scales is binding on the city unless he can be impeached for cause. Scales was city engineer under the previous reform spasm, but Stone probably found him good material and kept him on. The waterworks plans were prepared under his supervision and he got them ready for bidding. Now what"s the answer?"
"Easy," returned Bobby. "The city loses."
"Right," agreed Jolter; "but how? I don"t see that we can do anything.
Scales, having prepared the plans, is the logical man to see that they are carried out, and he is perfectly competent. His record is clean, so that he owns no property, nor does any of his family--although that may be because he never had a chance. The Middle West Construction Company, though just incorporated, is financially sound, thoroughly bonded, and, moreover, has put into the hands of the city ample guarantee for its twenty per cent. forfeit as required by the terms of the contract. There isn"t a thing that the _Bulletin_ can do except to boost local enterprise with a bit of reservation, then lay low and wait for developments."
"I dislike to do it," objected Bobby. "It hurts me to think of mentioning Stone or Trimmer in any complimentary way whatsoever."
Jolter laughed. "You"re a fine and consistent enemy," he said.
"I guess I came by it honestly," smiled Bobby, and from a drawer in his desk took one of the gray John Burnit letters.
""Always forgive your enemies,"" read Jolter aloud; ""that is, after you are good and even with them.""
"Here goes for them, then," said Jolter, pa.s.sing back the letter with an approving chuckle. "We"ll let them go right ahead, and in the meantime the _Bulletin_ will do a lot of real nifty old sleuthing."
But the _Bulletin"s_ sleuthing brought nothing wrong to light, and work upon the big waterworks contract was begun with a rush.
In the meantime Agnes, true to her threat, was doing some investigating on her own account. She renewed her girlhood acquaintance with Trimmer"s daughter, who was now Mrs. Clarence Smythe, and with others of the Trimmer connection, and she saw these women folk frequently for the sole purpose of gathering up any sc.r.a.ps of information that might drop. The best she could gather, however, was that Clarence Smythe and Silas Trimmer were no longer upon very friendly terms; that Mrs. Smythe had quarreled with her father about Clarence; also that Clarence"s Trimmer and Company stock was in Mrs.
Smythe"s name. These sc.r.a.ps of information, slight as they were, she religiously brought to Bobby. When the new waterworks began Agnes saved all the newspaper clippings relating to that tremendous undertaking, and she frequently drove out there of evenings after the workmen had all gone home; with just what purpose she could not say, but she felt impelled, as she half-sheepishly confessed to her Uncle Dan, to "keep an eye on the job." She kept up her absurd surveillance in spite of all Uncle Dan"s ridicule, and one evening she came home in a state of quivering excitement. She called up Bobby at once.
"Bobby," she wanted to know, "has the city decided to cut down expenses on the waterworks, or have the plans been changed for any reason?"
"Not that the public knows about," replied Bobby. "Why?"
"The pumping station is not so big as the newspapers said it was to be. It is over thirty feet shorter and over twenty feet narrower."
"How do you know?" demanded Bobby.
"I took Wilkins out there with me to-night and had him measure it for me with a yard-stick while the watchman had gone for his supper,"
replied Agnes triumphantly.
Bobby stopped to laugh.
"Impossible," said he. "You have measured it wrong or misunderstood it in some way or other."
"You go out and measure it for yourself," insisted Agnes.
Partly to humor her and partly because his interest had been aroused, Bobby went out the next night and measured the pumping station, the excavation for which was already completed, and to his astonishment found that Agnes" measurements were correct. He immediately wrote to Ferris about it, told him the present dimensions and asked him upon what basis he had figured. In place of replying Ferris came on.
Arriving in the city on Sat.u.r.day, on Sunday he and Bobby went out to the site, and Ferris examined the new waterworks with a deliberation which well-nigh got him into serious trouble with the watchman.
"Well, young man, your fair city is stung," declared Ferris. "The trenches are not so deep as specified by two feet, and from their width I can tell that the foundation walls are to be at least six inches thinner. I bid on the best grade of Portland cement for that job. It was spelled with a _B_, however, in my copy of the specification, and I asked your man Scales about it. "Oh," said he, "that"s a misprint in the typewriting," and he changed the _B_ to _P_ with a lead pencil. Under that shed are about a thousand barrels of _Bortland_ cement. I never heard of that brand, but I can tell cement when I see it, and this stuff will have no more adhesive power than plain mud. Bedford stone was specified. They have several car-loads of stone dumped down here which is not Bedford stone at all. I could tell a piece of Bedford in the dark. This is an inferior rock which will discolor in six months and will disintegrate in five years."
Bobby thought the thing over quietly for some minutes.
"About the dimensions of the building, Ferris, you might possibly be mistaken, might you not?" asked Bobby.
"Impossible," returned Ferris. "I have not figured on many jobs for years, but our chief estimator had been sent down to Cuba when this thing came up and I did the work myself, so I have a very vivid memory of it and can not possibly have it confused with any other bid.
Moreover, we have all those things on record in our office and I looked it up before I came away. The dimensions of the power house and pumping station were to be one hundred and ninety by one hundred and sixty feet. The present dimensions are one hundred and fifty-eight by one hundred and thirty-three."
Bobby was thoughtfully silent for a while.
"Do you remember who else bid on the contract?" he inquired presently.
"Every one of them," smiled Ferris. "I can give you their addresses and the names of the people to wire to if that is what you want. We meet them on every big job."
"Do you mind wiring yourself?" asked Bobby. "They would be more apt to give you confidential information."
"With pleasure," agreed Ferris, and wrote the telegrams.
On the following morning Bobby received answers at his office to all but one of his telegrams, and the information was unanimous that the original plans had called for a building one hundred and ninety by one hundred and sixty feet.
"Now I begin to understand," said Ferris. "This was the first set of important plans I ever saw in which the dimensions were not marked, but they were most accurately drawn to scale, one-fourth inch to the foot. They are probably using the same drawings with an altered scale, although it would be an absurdly clumsy trick. If that is the case it is easy to see how the Middle West Construction Company could under-bid us by more than a million dollars and still make more money than we figured on."
Bobby reached for the telephone.
"Get me the mayor"s office," he called to the girl at his private telephone exchange. "Will you "stick around" to see the fuss?" he inquired with grim pleasure, as he hung up the receiver.
Ferris grinned as he noted the light of battle dawning in Bobby"s eyes.
"I don"t know," he replied. "It depends on the size and duration of the fuss."
"If you don"t stay I"ll have you subpoenaed. I may have to, anyhow.
As for the size of the fuss, I can promise you a bully one if what you surmise is correct."