"Everybody thinks there"s some trickery in that suit," she answered.
"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will help you any to know it, I"ve been having no end of scenes with my brother."
"I"ll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite ashamed because I didn"t help you myself!"
The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy"s home, and she asked him to dinner. "There"ll be n.o.body but my brother," she said,--"we"re resting this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!"
Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy"s mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge"s palace, and met Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed orders promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked ice in readiness beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their closets.
It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting chestnuts.
He was all right, she said, if you didn"t come under his tree. And Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered, "Any one he happens to be under at the time."
And then she came to the Wallings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn"t know about it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, and exhibited them for Montague"s benefit. They were typical bourgeois people, she said. They were burghers. They had never shown the least capacity for refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled other people out of the way. The old ones had been boors, and the new ones were cads.
And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history of the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they simply grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you"ll find they"re making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat down on and held. There"s a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which they haven"t the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they"ve given themselves a contract with their railroad by which they"re paid for every pa.s.senger, and their profit every year is greater than the cost of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him feel good. Of course the family went wild--my, how they hated me! They set old Ellis to work to keep me off--have you met Judge Ellis?"
"I have," said Montague.
"Well, there"s a p.u.s.s.y-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs. Billy.
"In those days he was Walling"s business lackey--used to pa.s.s the money to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine greased. One of the first things I said to the old man was that I didn"t ask him to entertain my butler, and he mustn"t ask me to entertain his valet--and so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And when I found that he was trying to get between the old man and me, I flew into a rage and boxed his ears and chased him out of the room!"
Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The Wallings never could make out how I managed to get round him as I did; but it was simply because I was honest with him. They"d come snivelling round, pretending they were anxious about his health; while I wanted his money, and I told him so."
The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she asked, and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story. "When I first came to New York," she said, "the rich people"s houses were all alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one or two city lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room all around it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all New York walks by and stares at. You can hardly believe it now--those houses were a scandal! But the sensation tickled the old man. I remember one day we walked up the Avenue to see how they were coming on; and he pointed with his big stick to the second floor, and asked, "What"s that?" I answered, "It"s a safe I"m building into the house." (That was a new thing, too, in those days.)--"I"m going to keep my money in that," I said. "Bah!" he growled, "when you"re done with this house, you won"t have any money left."--"I"m planning to make you fill it for me," I answered; and do you know, he chuckled all the way home over it!"
Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the Wallings into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when I came--licking people"s boots and expecting to be kicked. I said to myself, I"ll put an end to that--we"ll have a show-down! So I gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn"t be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: "If you come, you"re a friend, and if you don"t come, you"re an enemy." And they all came, let me tell you! And there was never any question about the Wallings being in Society after that."
Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it.
"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that all I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I"d like to poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to them much worse than I ever dreamed of. You"ll be revenged on the Robbies some day."
"I don"t want any revenge," Montague answered. "I"ve no quarrel with them--I simply wish I hadn"t accepted their hospitality. I didn"t know they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it."
Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said. "They know there"s nothing to them but their money. When that"s gone, they"re gone--they could never make any more."
The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of Davy"s experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about it, Davy."
But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his sister.
"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss and told him he"d like to go to Congress. The answer was that it would cost him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price. Others didn"t have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And the old man growled at him, "The rest have other things to give. One can deliver the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a corporation. But what can you do? What is there to you but your money?"--So Davy paid the money--didn"t you, Davy?" And Davy grinned sheepishly.
"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They got fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America wasn"t a fit place for a gentleman to live in."
And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came the Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she got through with them all.
CHAPTER XVIII
The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety because of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of new cases.
But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The first caller was a dest.i.tute widow with a deed which would have ent.i.tled her to the greater part of a large city in Pennsylvania--only unfortunately the deed was about eighty years old. And then there was a poor old man who had been hurt in a street-car accident and had been tricked into signing away his rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring a hundred suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All were contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote.
And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last resort, having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic temper.
There was one case which interested him particularly, because it seemed to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his brother. He received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very evident refinement and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to him a most amazing story. Five or six years ago he had invented a storage-battery, which was the most efficient known. He had organised a company with three million dollars" capital to manufacture it, himself taking a third interest for his patents, and becoming president of the company. Not long afterward had come a proposal from a group of men who wished to organize a company to manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an alliance which would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But these men were not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they were traction and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous methods. And so he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to organize an automobile company himself. He had just got under way when he discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now came a call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to sell out.
And at the next stockholders" meeting it developed that their rivals had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open market; and they proceeded to take possession of the company, ousting the former president--and then making a contract with their automobile company to furnish the storage-battery at a price which left no profit for the manufacturers! And so for two years the inventor had not received a dollar of dividends upon his million dollars" worth of paper; and to cap the climax, the company had refused to sell the battery to his automobile company, and so that had gone into bankruptcy, and his friend was ruined also!
Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that he had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he had come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at Siegfried Harvey"s. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a very few days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had presented the bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague could not but wonder if it was the million that had been taken from his client!
There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires" on the night before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited. As he was thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother, saying that he wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back his courage day by day, and declared that it was more important than ever now that he should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for Alice"s sake, if not for his own. And so Montague went to the dinner, and saw deeper yet into the history of the stolen millions.
It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra concealed in a bower of plants. But there were c.o.c.ktails even on the side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would hurl their gla.s.ses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of laughter.
By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get quite a history of the young host"s adventurous career. There was a house up on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in every part of the world. There was the summer night in Newport harbour, when some one had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing twenty-dollar gold pieces in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down the girls" backs! And there was a banquet in a studio in New York, when a huge pie had been brought on, from which a half-nude girl had emerged, with a flock of canary birds about her! Then there was a damsel who had been wont to dance upon the tops of supper tables, clad in diaphanous costume; and who had got drunk after a theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway restaurant. There was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a speciality of this diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city where such orgies were carried on continually; there were private clubs, and artists" "studios"--there were several allusions to a high tower, which Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters, however, were explained to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on his right, and who seemed to stay sober, no matter how much he drank. Incidentally he gravely advised Montague to meet one of the young host"s mistresses, who was a "stunning" girl, and was in the market.
Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of wrestling-bouts; the young men stripped off their clothing and tore the table to pieces, and piled it out of the way in a corner, smashing most of the crockery in the process. Between the matches, champagne would be opened by knocking off the heads of the bottles; and this went on until four o"clock in the morning, when many of the guests were lying in heaps upon the floor.
Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat next to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were common.
And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West, replied by telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At Siegfried Harvey"s theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress in a musical comedy, which was then the most successful play running in New York.
The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the matinee you might observe the street in front of the stage-entrance blocked by people waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe and supple, like a panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal her form. It seemed that her play must have been built with one purpose in mind, to see how much lewdness could be put upon a stage without interference by the police.--And now his companion told him how this woman had been invited to sing at a banquet given by the magnates of a mighty Trust, and had gone after midnight to the most exclusive club in the town, and sung her popular ditty, "Won"t you come and play with me?" The merry magnates had taken the invitation literally--with the result that the actress had escaped from the room with half her clothing torn off her.
And a little while later an official of this trust had wished to get rid of his wife and marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had forced the directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by threatening to tell about this banquet!
The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague and Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the newspapers to be the most "important" social event of the week; and it took half a dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled the street. The ceremony took place at St. Cecilia"s, with the stately bishop officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside the doors were all the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and such a medley of delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady could equal. The groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked very handsome, though somewhat pale; and Montague could not but smile as he observed the best man, looking so very solemn, and recollected the drunken wrestler of a few hours before, staggering about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up the back.
The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning they had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those present--and even a couple of lines about Alice"s costume. (Alice was always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to be the "Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss Montagues in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the "yellow"
papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the bride, and of the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the long honeymoon which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her husband"s yacht.
Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of its former occupants would not haunt her, and whether she would have been as happy, had she known as much as he knew.
He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this banquet.
Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a hint that Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit to tell his brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one of the established customs of the "little brothers of the rich"--and, for that matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A little later Montague had a curious glimpse into the life of this "half-world." He had occasion one evening to call up a certain financier whom he had come to know quite well-a man of family and a member of the church. There were some important papers to be signed and sent off by a steamer; and the great man"s secretary said that he would try to find him. A minute or two later he called up Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to go to an address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; and Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was exquisite to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he had found worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening, that when he was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like his cousin Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed slightly, and was embarra.s.sed. Later on he learned to his dismay that the charming and beautiful lady did not go into Society.
Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble to make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were everywhere taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major Venable; and out of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew forth a string of anecdotes that made one"s hair stand on end. There was one all-powerful magnate, who had a pa.s.sion for the wife of a great physician; and he had given a million dollars or so to build a hospital, and had provided that it should be the finest in the world, and that this physician should go abroad for three years to study the inst.i.tutions of Europe!
No conventions counted with this old man--if he saw a woman whom he wanted, he would ask for her; and women in Society felt that it was an honour to be his mistress. Not long after this a man who voiced the anguish of a mighty nation was turned out of several hotels in New York because he was not married according to the laws of South Dakota; but this other man would take a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one would dare oppose him!
And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one just around the corner from his palatial home, and had an underground pa.s.sage leading to it. And the Major told with glee how he had shown this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, "I"m too stout to get through there."--"I know it," replied the other, "else I shouldn"t have told you!"
And so it went. One of the richest men in New York was a s.e.xual degenerate, with half a dozen women on his hands all the time; he would send them cheques, and they would use these to blackmail him. This man"s young wife had been shut up in a closet for twenty-four hours by her mother to compel her to marry him.--And then there was the charming tale of how he had gone away upon a mission of state, and had written long messages full of tender protestations, and given them to a newspaper correspondent to cable home "to his wife." The correspondent had thought it such a touching example of conjugal devotion that he told about it at a dinner-party when he came back; and he was struck by the sudden silence that fell. "The messages had been sent to a code address!" chuckled the Major. "And every one at the table knew who had got them!"
A few days after this, Montague received a telephone message from Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter of business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague went--though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity Building, the enemy"s bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls of white marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to Montague that somewhere in this structure people were at work preparing an answer to his charges; he wondered what they were saying.
The two had lunch, talking meanwhile about the coming events in Society, and about politics and wars; and when the coffee was served and they were alone in the room, Harvey settled his big frame back in his chair, and began:--
"In the first place," he said, "I must explain that I"ve something to say that is devilish hard to get into. I"m so much afraid of your jumping to a wrong conclusion in the middle of it--I"d like you to agree to listen for a minute or two before you think at all."
"All right," said Montague, with a smile. "Fire away."
And at once the other became grave. "You"ve taken a case against this company," he said. "And Ollie has talked enough to me to make me understand that you"ve done a plucky thing, and that you must be everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to drop it. I"d be very sorry to be cla.s.sed with them, for even a moment; and you must understand at the outset that I haven"t a particle of interest in the company, and that it wouldn"t matter to me if I had. I don"t try to use my friends in business, and I don"t let money count with me in my social life. I made up my mind to take the risk of speaking to you about this case, simply because I happen to know one or two things about it that I thought you didn"t know. And if that"s so, you are at a great disadvantage; but in any case, please understand that I have no motive but friendship, and so if I am b.u.t.ting in, excuse me."