"Why not?" asked the Major, seriously. "Why not find out who sent that Colonel Cole to see you? And find out how badly he needs your little railroad, and make him pay for it accordingly."
"That is not QUITE in my line," said Montague.
"It"s time you were learning," said the Major. "I can start you. I know a detective whom you can trust.--At any rate," he added cautiously, "I don"t know that he"s ever played me false."
Montague sat for a while in thought. "You said something about their getting after one"s telephone," he observed. "Did you really mean that?"
"Of course," said the other.
"Do you mean to tell me that they could find out what goes over my "phone?"
"I mean to tell you," was the reply, "that for two hundred and fifty dollars, I can get you a stenographic report of every word that you say over your "phone for twenty-four hours, and of every word that anybody says to you."
"That sounds incredible!" said Montague. "Who does it?"
"Wire tappers. It"s dangerous work, but the pay is big. I have a friend who once upon a time was putting through a deal in which the telephone company was interested, and they transferred his wire to another branch, and he finished up his business before the other side got on to the trick. To this day you"ll notice that his telephone is "Spring," though every other "phone in the neighbourhood is "John.""
"And mail, too?" asked Montague.
"Mail!" echoed the Major. "What"s easier than that? You can hold up a man"s mail for twenty-four hours and take a photograph of every letter. You can do the same with every letter that he mails, unless he is very careful. He can be followed, you understand, and every time he drops a letter, a blue or yellow envelope is dropped on top--for a signal to the post-office people."
"But then, so many persons would have to know about that!"
"Nothing of the kind. That"s a regular branch of the post-office work. There are Secret Service men who are watching criminals that way all the time. And what could be easier than to pay one of them, and to have your enemy listed with the suspects?"
The Major smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt. It always gave him delight to witness Montague"s consternation over his pictures of the city"s corruption.
"There are things even stranger than that," he said. "I can introduce you to a man who"s in this room now, who was fighting the Ship-building swindle, and he got hold of a lot of important papers, and he took them to his office, and sat by while his clerks made thirty-two copies of them. And he put the originals and thirty-one of the copies in thirty-two different safe-deposit vaults in the city, and took the other copy to his home in a valise. And that night burglars broke in, and the valise was missing. The next day he wrote to the people he was fighting, "I was going to send you a copy of the papers which have come into my possession, but as you already have a copy, I will simply proceed to outline my proposition." And that was all. They settled for a million or two."
The Major paused a moment and looked across the dining-room. "There goes d.i.c.k Sanderson," he said, pointing to a dapper young man with a handsome, smooth-shaven face. "He represents the New Jersey Southern Railroad. And one day another lawyer who met him at dinner remarked, "I am going to bring a stockholders" suit against your road to-morrow." He went on to outline the case, which was a big one.
Sanderson said nothing, but he went out and telephoned to their agent in Trenton, and the next morning a bill went through both houses of the Legislature providing a statute of limitations that outlawed the case. The man who was the victim of that trick is now the Governor of New York State, and if you ever meet him, you can ask him about it."
There was a pause for a while; then suddenly the Major remarked, "Oh, by the way, this beautiful widow you have brought up from Mississippi--Mrs. Taylor--is that the name?"
"That"s it," said Montague.
"I hear that Stanley Ryder has taken quite a fancy to her," said the other.
A grave look came upon Montague"s face. "I am sorry, indeed, that you have heard it," he said.
"Why," said the other, "that"s all right. He will give her a good time."
"Lucy is new to New York," said Montague. "I don"t think she quite realises the sort of man that Ryder is."
The Major thought for a moment, then suddenly began to laugh. "It might be just as well for her to be careful," he said. "I happened to think of it--they say that Mrs. Stanley is getting ready to free herself from the matrimonial bond; and if your fascinating widow doesn"t want to get into the newspapers, she had better be a little careful with her favours."
CHAPTER IV
Two or three days after this Montague met Jim Hegan at a directors"
meeting. He watched him closely, but Hegan gave no sign of constraint. He was courteous and serene as ever. "By the way, Mr.
Montague," he said, "I mentioned that railroad matter to a friend who is interested. You may hear from him in a few days."
"I am obliged to you," said the other, and that was all.
The next day was Sunday, and Montague came to take Lucy to church, and told her of this remark. He did not tell her about the episode with Colonel Cole, for he thought there was no use disturbing her.
She, for her part, had other matters to talk about. "By the way, Allan," she said, "I presume you know that the coaching parade is to-morrow."
"Yes," said he.
"Mr. Ryder has offered me a seat on his coach," said Lucy.--"I suppose you are going to be angry with me," she added quickly, seeing his frown.
"You said you would go?" he asked.
"Yes," said Lucy. "I did not think it would be any harm. It is such a public matter--"
"A public matter!" exclaimed Montague. "I should think so! To sit up on top of a coach for the crowds to stare at, and for thirty or forty newspaper reporters to take snap-shots of! And to have yourself blazoned as the fascinating young widow from Mississippi who was one of Stanley Ryder"s party, and then to have all Society looking at the picture and winking and making remarks about it!"
"You take such a cynical view of everything," protested Lucy. "How can people help it if the crowds will stare, and if the newspapers will take pictures? Surely one cannot give up the pleasure of going for a drive--"
"Oh, pshaw, Lucy!" said Montague. "You have too much sense to talk like that. If you want to drive, go ahead and drive. But when a lot of people get together and pay ten or twenty thousand dollars apiece for fancy coaches and horses, and then appoint a day and send out notice to the whole city, and dress themselves up in fancy costumes and go out and make a public parade of themselves, they have no right to talk about driving for pleasure."
"Well," said she, dubiously, "it"s nice to be noticed."
"It is for those who like it," said he; "and if a woman chooses to set out on a publicity campaign, and run a press bureau, and make herself a public character, why, that"s her privilege. But for heaven"s sake let her drop the sickly pretence that she is only driving beautiful horses, or listening to music, or entertaining her friends. I suppose a Society woman has as much right to advertise her personality as a politician or a manufacturer of pills; all I object to is the sham of it, the everlasting twaddle about her love of privacy. Take Mrs. Winnie Duval, for instance. You would think to hear her that her one ideal in life was to be a simple shepherdess and to raise flowers; but, as a matter of fact, she keeps a sc.r.a.p-alb.u.m, and if a week pa.s.ses that the newspapers do not have some paragraphs about her doings, she begins to get restless."
Lucy broke into a laugh. "I was at Mrs. Robbie Walling"s last night," she said. "She was talking about the crowds at the opera, and she said she was going to withdraw to some place where she wouldn"t have to see such mobs of ugly people."
"Yes," said he. "But you can"t tell me anything about Mrs. Robbie Walling. I have been there. There"s nothing that lady does from the time she opens her eyes in the morning until the time she goes to bed the next morning that she would ever care to do if it were not for the mobs of ugly people looking on."
--"You seem to be going everywhere," said Montague, after a pause.
"Oh, I guess I"m a success," said Lucy. "I am certainly having a gorgeous time. I never saw so many beautiful houses or such dazzling costumes in my life."
"It"s very fine," said Montague. "But take it slowly and make it last. When one has got used to it, the life seems rather dull and grey."
"I am invited to the Wymans" to-night," said Lucy,--"to play bridge.
Fancy giving a bridge party on Sunday night!"
Montague shrugged his shoulders. "_Cosi fan tutti_," he said.
"What do you make of Betty Wyman?" asked the other.
"She is having a good time," said he. "I don"t think she has much conscience about it."