Chapter XXVI
Things had changed greatly since last Cowperwood had talked with Butler. Although most friendly at the time the proposition was made that he should combine with Mollenhauer and Simpson to sustain the market, alas, now on this Monday morning at nine o’clock, an additional complication had been added to the already tangled situation which had changed Butler’s attitude completely. As he was leaving his home to enter his runabout, at nine o’clock in the morning of this same day in which Cowperwood was seeking Stener’s aid, the postman, coming up, had handed Butler four letters, all of which he paused for a moment to glance at. One was from a sub-contractor by the name of O’Higgins, the second was from Father Michel, his confessor, of St. Timothy’s, thanking him for a contribution to the parish poor fund; a third was from Drexel & Co. relating to a deposit, and the fourth was an anonymous communication, on cheap stationery from some one who was apparently not very literate—a woman most likely—written in a scrawling hand, which read:
DEAR SIR—This is to warn you that your daughter Aileen is running around with a man that she shouldn’t, Frank A. Cowperwood, the banker. If you don’t believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street. Then you can see for yourself.
There was neither signature nor mark of any kind to indicate from whence it might have come. Butler got the impression strongly that it might have been written by some one living in the vicinity of the number indicated. His intuitions were keen at times. As a matter of fact, it was written by a girl, a member of St. Timothy’s Church, who did live in the vicinity of the house indicated, and who knew Aileen by sight and was jealous of her airs and her position. She was a thin, anemic, dissatisfied creature who had the type of brain which can reconcile the gratification of personal spite with a comforting sense of having fulfilled a moral duty. Her home was some five doors north of the unregistered Cowperwood domicile on the opposite side of the street, and by degrees, in the course of time, she made out, or imagined that she had, the significance of this institution, piecing fact to fancy and fusing all with that keen intuition which is so closely related to fact. The result was eventually this letter which now spread clear and grim before Butler’s eyes.
The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race. Their first and strongest impulse is to make the best of a bad situation—to put a better face on evil than it normally wears. On first reading these lines the intelligence they conveyed sent a peculiar chill over Butler’s sturdy frame. His jaw instinctively closed, and his gray eyes narrowed. Could this be true? If it were not, would the author of the letter say so practically, “If you don’t believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street”? Wasn’t that in itself proof positive—the hard, matter-of-fact realism of it? And this was the man who had come to him the night before seeking aid—whom he had done so much to assist. There forced itself into his naturally slow-moving but rather accurate mind a sense of the distinction and charm of his daughter—a considerably sharper picture than he had ever had before, and at the same time a keener understanding of the personality of Frank Algernon Cowperwood. How was it he had failed to detect the real subtlety of this man? How was it he had never seen any sign of it, if there had been anything between Cowperwood and Aileen?
Parents are frequently inclined, because of a time-flattered sense of security, to take their children for granted. Nothing ever has happened, so nothing ever will happen. They see their children every day, and through the eyes of affection; and despite their natural charm and their own strong parental love, the children are apt to become not only commonplaces, but ineffably secure against evil. Mary is naturally a good girl—a little wild, but what harm can befall her? John is a straight-forward, steady-going boy—how could he get into trouble? The astonishment of most parents at the sudden accidental revelation of evil in connection with any of their children is almost invariably pathetic. “My John! My Mary! Impossible!” But it is possible. Very possible. Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding, or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant. They feel themselves astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice. Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and uncertainty of life—the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others, taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that incomprehensible chemistry which we call _life_ and personality, and, knowing that it is quite vain to hope to gainsay it, save by greater subtlety, put the best face they can upon the matter and call a truce until they can think. We all know that life is unsolvable—we who think. The remainder imagine a vain thing, and are full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
So Edward Butler, being a man of much wit and hard, grim experience, stood there on his doorstep holding in his big, rough hand his thin slip of cheap paper which contained such a terrific indictment of his daughter. There came to him now a picture of her as she was when she was a very little girl—she was his first baby girl—and how keenly he had felt about her all these years. She had been a beautiful child—her red-gold hair had been pillowed on his breast many a time, and his hard, rough fingers had stroked her soft cheeks, lo, these thousands of times. Aileen, his lovely, dashing daughter of twenty-three! He was lost in dark, strange, unhappy speculations, without any present ability to think or say or do the right thing. He did not know what the right thing was, he finally confessed to himself. Aileen! Aileen! His Aileen! If her mother knew this it would break her heart. She mustn’t! She mustn’t! And yet mustn’t she?
The heart of a father! The world wanders into many strange by-paths of affection. The love of a mother for her children is dominant, leonine, selfish, and unselfish. It is concentric. The love of a husband for his wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a sweet bond of agreement and exchange trade in a lovely contest. The love of a father for his son or daughter, where it is love at all, is a broad, generous, sad, contemplative giving without thought of return, a hail and farewell to a troubled traveler whom he would do much to guard, a balanced judgment of weakness and strength, with pity for failure and pride in achievement. It is a lovely, generous, philosophic blossom which rarely asks too much, and seeks only to give wisely and plentifully. “That my boy may succeed! That my daughter may be happy!” Who has not heard and dwelt upon these twin fervors of fatherly wisdom and tenderness?
As Butler drove downtown his huge, slow-moving, in some respects chaotic mind turned over as rapidly as he could all of the possibilities in connection with this unexpected, sad, and disturbing revelation. Why had Cowperwood not been satisfied with his wife? Why should he enter into his (Butler’s) home, of all places, to establish a clandestine relationship of this character? Was Aileen in any way to blame? She was not without mental resources of her own. She must have known what she was doing. She was a good Catholic, or, at least, had been raised so. All these years she had been going regularly to confession and communion. True, of late Butler had noticed that she did not care so much about going to church, would sometimes make excuses and stay at home on Sundays; but she had gone, as a rule. And now, now—his thoughts would come to the end of a blind alley, and then he would start back, as it were, mentally, to the center of things, and begin all over again.
He went up the stairs to his own office slowly. He went in and sat down, and thought and thought. Ten o’clock came, and eleven. His son bothered him with an occasional matter of interest, but, finding him moody, finally abandoned him to his own speculations. It was twelve, and then one, and he was still sitting there thinking, when the presence of Cowperwood was announced.
Cowperwood, on finding Butler not at home, and not encountering Aileen, had hurried up to the office of the Edward Butler Contracting Company, which was also the center of some of Butler’s street-railway interests. The floor space controlled by the company was divided into the usual official compartments, with sections for the bookkeepers, the road-managers, the treasurer, and so on. Owen Butler, and his father had small but attractively furnished offices in the rear, where they transacted all the important business of the company.
During this drive, curiously, by reason of one of those strange psychologic intuitions which so often precede a human difficulty of one sort or another, he had been thinking of Aileen. He was thinking of the peculiarity of his relationship with her, and of the fact that now he was running to her father for assistance. As he mounted the stairs he had a peculiar sense of the untoward; but he could not, in his view of life, give it countenance. One glance at Butler showed him that something had gone amiss. He was not so friendly; his glance was dark, and there was a certain sternness to his countenance which had never previously been manifested there in Cowperwood’s memory. He perceived at once that here was something different from a mere intention to refuse him aid and call his loan. What was it? Aileen? It must be that. Somebody had suggested something. They had been seen together. Well, even so, nothing could be proved. Butler would obtain no sign from him. But his loan—that was to be called, surely. And as for an additional loan, he could see now, before a word had been said, that that thought was useless.
“I came to see you about that loan of yours, Mr. Butler,” he observed, briskly, with an old-time, jaunty air. You could not have told from his manner or his face that he had observed anything out of the ordinary.
Butler, who was alone in the room—Owen having gone into an adjoining room—merely stared at him from under his shaggy brows.
“I’ll have to have that money,” he said, brusquely, darkly.
An old-time Irish rage suddenly welled up in his bosom as he contemplated this jaunty, sophisticated undoer of his daughter’s virtue. He fairly glared at him as he thought of him and her.
“I judged from the way things were going this morning that you might want it,” Cowperwood replied, quietly, without sign of tremor. “The bottom’s out, I see.”
“The bottom’s out, and it’ll not be put back soon, I’m thinkin’. I’ll have to have what’s belongin’ to me to-day. I haven’t any time to spare.”
“Very well,” replied Cowperwood, who saw clearly how treacherous the situation was. The old man was in a dour mood. His presence was an irritation to him, for some reason—a deadly provocation. Cowperwood felt clearly that it must be Aileen, that he must know or suspect something.
He must pretend business hurry and end this. “I’m sorry. I thought I might get an extension; but that’s all right. I can get the money, though. I’ll send it right over.”
He turned and walked quickly to the door.
Butler got up. He had thought to manage this differently.
He had thought to denounce or even assault this man. He was about to make some insinuating remark which would compel an answer, some direct charge; but Cowperwood was out and away as jaunty as ever.
The old man was flustered, enraged, disappointed. He opened the small office door which led into the adjoining room, and called, “Owen!”
“Yes, father.”
“Send over to Cowperwood’s office and get that money.”
“You decided to call it, eh?”
“I have.”
Owen was puzzled by the old man’s angry mood. He wondered what it all meant, but thought he and Cowperwood might have had a few words. He went out to his desk to write a note and call a clerk. Butler went to the window and stared out. He was angry, bitter, brutal in his vein.
“The dirty dog!” he suddenly exclaimed to himself, in a low voice. “I’ll take every dollar he’s got before I’m through with him. I’ll send him to jail, I will. I’ll break him, I will. Wait!”
He clinched his big fists and his teeth.
“I’ll fix him. I’ll show him. The dog! The damned scoundrel!”
Never in his life before had he been so bitter, so cruel, so relentless in his mood.
He walked his office floor thinking what he could do. Question Aileen—that was what he would do. If her face, or her lips, told him that his suspicion was true, he would deal with Cowperwood later. This city treasurer business, now. It was not a crime in so far as Cowperwood was concerned; but it might be made to be.
So now, telling the clerk to say to Owen that he had gone down the street for a few moments, he boarded a street-car and rode out to his home, where he found his elder daughter just getting ready to go out. She wore a purple-velvet street dress edged with narrow, flat gilt braid, and a striking gold-and-purple turban. She had on dainty new boots of bronze kid and long gloves of lavender suede. In her ears was one of her latest affectations, a pair of long jet earrings. The old Irishman realized on this occasion, when he saw her, perhaps more clearly than he ever had in his life, that he had grown a bird of rare plumage.
“Where are you going, daughter?” he asked, with a rather unsuccessful attempt to conceal his fear, distress, and smoldering anger.
“To the library,” she said easily, and yet with a sudden realization that all was not right with her father. His face was too heavy and gray. He looked tired and gloomy.
“Come up to my office a minute,” he said. “I want to see you before you go.”
Aileen heard this with a strange feeling of curiosity and wonder. It was not customary for her father to want to see her in his office just when she was going out; and his manner indicated, in this instance, that the exceptional procedure portended a strange revelation of some kind. Aileen, like every other person who offends against a rigid convention of the time, was conscious of and sensitive to the possible disastrous results which would follow exposure. She had often thought about what her family would think if they knew what she was doing; she had never been able to satisfy herself in her mind as to what they would do. Her father was a very vigorous man. But she had never known him to be cruel or cold in his attitude toward her or any other member of the family, and especially not toward her. Always he seemed too fond of her to be completely alienated by anything that might happen; yet she could not be sure.
Butler led the way, planting his big feet solemnly on the steps as he went up. Aileen followed with a single glance at herself in the tall pier-mirror which stood in the hall, realizing at once how charming she looked and how uncertain she was feeling about what was to follow. What could her father want? It made the color leave her cheeks for the moment, as she thought what he might want.
Butler strolled into his stuffy room and sat down in the big leather chair, disproportioned to everything else in the chamber, but which, nevertheless, accompanied his desk. Before him, against the light, was the visitor’s chair, in which he liked to have those sit whose faces he was anxious to study. When Aileen entered he motioned her to it, which was also ominous to her, and said, “Sit down there.”
She took the seat, not knowing what to make of his procedure. On the instant her promise to Cowperwood to deny everything, whatever happened, came back to her. If her father was about to attack her on that score, he would get no satisfaction, she thought. She owed it to Frank. Her pretty face strengthened and hardened on the instant. Her small, white teeth set themselves in two even rows; and her father saw quite plainly that she was consciously bracing herself for an attack of some kind. He feared by this that she was guilty, and he was all the more distressed, ashamed, outraged, made wholly unhappy. He fumbled in the left-hand pocket of his coat and drew forth from among the various papers the fatal communication so cheap in its physical texture. His big fingers fumbled almost tremulously as he fished the letter-sheet out of the small envelope and unfolded it without saying a word. Aileen watched his face and his hands, wondering what it could be that he had here. He handed the paper over, small in his big fist, and said, “Read that.”
Aileen took it, and for a second was relieved to be able to lower her eyes to the paper. Her relief vanished in a second, when she realized how in a moment she would have to raise them again and look him in the face.
DEAR SIR—This is to warn you that your daughter Aileen is running around with a man that she shouldn’t, Frank A. Cowperwood, the banker. If you don’t believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street. Then you can see for yourself.
In spite of herself the color fled from her cheeks instantly, only to come back in a hot, defiant wave.
“Why, what a lie!” she said, lifting her eyes to her father’s. “To think that any one should write such a thing of me! How dare they! I think it’s a shame!”
Old Butler looked at her narrowly, solemnly. He was not deceived to any extent by her bravado. If she were really innocent, he knew she would have jumped to her feet in her defiant way. Protest would have been written all over her. As it was, she only stared haughtily. He read through her eager defiance to the guilty truth.
“How do ye know, daughter, that I haven’t had the house watched?” he said, quizzically. “How do ye know that ye haven’t been seen goin’ in there?”
Only Aileen’s solemn promise to her lover could have saved her from this subtle thrust. As it was, she paled nervously; but she saw Frank Cowperwood, solemn and distinguished, asking her what she would say if she were caught.
“It’s a lie!” she said, catching her breath. “I wasn’t at any house at that number, and no one saw me going in there. How can you ask me that, father?”
In spite of his mixed feelings of uncertainty and yet unshakable belief that his daughter was guilty, he could not help admiring her courage—she was so defiant, as she sat there, so set in her determination to lie and thus defend herself. Her beauty helped her in his mood, raised her in his esteem. After all, what could you do with a woman of this kind? She was not a ten-year-old girl any more, as in a way he sometimes continued to fancy her.
“Ye oughtn’t to say that if it isn’t true, Aileen,” he said. “Ye oughtn’t to lie. It’s against your faith. Why would anybody write a letter like that if it wasn’t so?”
“But it’s not so,” insisted Aileen, pretending anger and outraged feeling, “and I don’t think you have any right to sit there and say that to me. I haven’t been there, and I’m not running around with Mr. Cowperwood. Why, I hardly know the man except in a social way.”
Butler shook his head solemnly.
“It’s a great blow to me, daughter. It’s a great blow to me,” he said. “I’m willing to take your word if ye say so; but I can’t help thinkin’ what a sad thing it would be if ye were lyin’ to me. I haven’t had the house watched. I only got this this mornin’. And what’s written here may not be so. I hope it isn’t. But we’ll not say any more about that now. If there is anythin’ in it, and ye haven’t gone too far yet to save yourself, I want ye to think of your mother and your sister and your brothers, and be a good girl. Think of the church ye was raised in, and the name we’ve got to stand up for in the world. Why, if ye were doin’ anything wrong, and the people of Philadelphy got a hold of it, the city, big as it is, wouldn’t be big enough to hold us. Your brothers have got a reputation to make, their work to do here. You and your sister want to get married sometime. How could ye expect to look the world in the face and do anythin’ at all if ye are doin’ what this letter says ye are, and it was told about ye?”
The old man’s voice was thick with a strange, sad, alien emotion. He did not want to believe that his daughter was guilty, even though he knew she was. He did not want to face what he considered in his vigorous, religious way to be his duty, that of reproaching her sternly. There were some fathers who would have turned her out, he fancied. There were others who might possibly kill Cowperwood after a subtle investigation. That course was not for him. If vengeance he was to have, it must be through politics and finance—he must drive him out. But as for doing anything desperate in connection with Aileen, he could not think of it.
“Oh, father,” returned Aileen, with considerable histrionic ability in her assumption of pettishness, “how can you talk like this when you know I’m not guilty? When I tell you so?”
The old Irishman saw through her make-believe with profound sadness—the feeling that one of his dearest hopes had been shattered. He had expected so much of her socially and matrimonially. Why, any one of a dozen remarkable young men might have married her, and she would have had lovely children to comfort him in his old age.
“Well, we’ll not talk any more about it now, daughter,” he said, wearily. “Ye’ve been so much to me during all these years that I can scarcely belave anythin’ wrong of ye. I don’t want to, God knows. Ye’re a grown woman, though, now; and if ye are doin’ anythin’ wrong I don’t suppose I could do so much to stop ye. I might turn ye out, of course, as many a father would; but I wouldn’t like to do anythin’ like that. But if ye are doin’ anythin’ wrong”—and he put up his hand to stop a proposed protest on the part of Aileen—“remember, I’m certain to find it out in the long run, and Philadelphy won’t be big enough to hold me and the man that’s done this thing to me. I’ll get him,” he said, getting up dramatically. “I’ll get him, and when I do—” He turned a livid face to the wall, and Aileen saw clearly that Cowperwood, in addition to any other troubles which might beset him, had her father to deal with. Was this why Frank had looked so sternly at her the night before?
“Why, your mother would die of a broken heart if she thought there was anybody could say the least word against ye,” pursued Butler, in a shaken voice. “This man has a family—a wife and children, Ye oughtn’t to want to do anythin’ to hurt them. They’ll have trouble enough, if I’m not mistaken—facin’ what’s comin’ to them in the future,” and Butler’s jaw hardened just a little. “Ye’re a beautiful girl. Ye’re young. Ye have money. There’s dozens of young men’d be proud to make ye their wife. Whatever ye may be thinkin’ or doin’, don’t throw away your life. Don’t destroy your immortal soul. Don’t break my heart entirely.”
Aileen, not ungenerous—fool of mingled affection and passion—could now have cried. She pitied her father from her heart; but her allegiance was to Cowperwood, her loyalty unshaken. She wanted to say something, to protest much more; but she knew that it was useless. Her father knew that she was lying.
“Well, there’s no use of my saying anything more, father,” she said, getting up. The light of day was fading in the windows. The downstairs door closed with a light slam, indicating that one of the boys had come in. Her proposed trip to the library was now without interest to her. “You won’t believe me, anyhow. I tell you, though, that I’m innocent just the same.”
Butler lifted his big, brown hand to command silence. She saw that this shameful relationship, as far as her father was concerned, had been made quite clear, and that this trying conference was now at an end. She turned and walked shamefacedly out. He waited until he heard her steps fading into faint nothings down the hall toward her room. Then he arose. Once more he clinched his big fists.
“The scoundrel!” he said. “The scoundrel! I’ll drive him out of Philadelphy, if it takes the last dollar I have in the world.”
Chapter XXVII
For the first time in his life Cowperwood felt conscious of having been in the presence of that interesting social phenomenon—the outraged sentiment of a parent. While he had no absolute knowledge as to why Butler had been so enraged, he felt that Aileen was the contributing cause. He himself was a father. His boy, Frank, Jr., was to him not so remarkable. But little Lillian, with her dainty little slip of a body and bright-aureoled head, had always appealed to him. She was going to be a charming woman one day, he thought, and he was going to do much to establish her safely. He used to tell her that she had “eyes like buttons,” “feet like a pussy-cat,” and hands that were “just five cents’ worth,” they were so little. The child admired her father and would often stand by his chair in the library or the sitting-room, or his desk in his private office, or by his seat at the table, asking him questions.
This attitude toward his own daughter made him see clearly how Butler might feel toward Aileen. He wondered how he would feel if it were his own little Lillian, and still he did not believe he would make much fuss over the matter, either with himself or with her, if she were as old as Aileen. Children and their lives were more or less above the willing of parents, anyhow, and it would be a difficult thing for any parent to control any child, unless the child were naturally docile-minded and willing to be controlled.
It also made him smile, in a grim way, to see how fate was raining difficulties on him. The Chicago fire, Stener’s early absence, Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson’s indifference to Stener’s fate and his. And now this probable revelation in connection with Aileen. He could not be sure as yet, but his intuitive instincts told him that it must be something like this.
Now he was distressed as to what Aileen would do, say if suddenly she were confronted by her father. If he could only get to her! But if he was to meet Butler’s call for his loan, and the others which would come yet to-day or on the morrow, there was not a moment to lose. If he did not pay he must assign at once. Butler’s rage, Aileen, his own danger, were brushed aside for the moment. His mind concentrated wholly on how to save himself financially.
He hurried to visit George Waterman; David Wiggin, his wife’s brother, who was now fairly well to do; Joseph Zimmerman, the wealthy dry-goods dealer who had dealt with him in the past; Judge Kitchen, a private manipulator of considerable wealth; Frederick Van Nostrand, the State treasurer, who was interested in local street-railway stocks, and others. Of all those to whom he appealed one was actually not in a position to do anything for him; another was afraid; a third was calculating eagerly to drive a hard bargain; a fourth was too deliberate, anxious to have much time. All scented the true value of his situation, all wanted time to consider, and he had no time to consider. Judge Kitchen did agree to lend him thirty thousand dollars—a paltry sum. Joseph Zimmerman would only risk twenty-five thousand dollars. He could see where, all told, he might raise seventy-five thousand dollars by hypothecating double the amount in shares; but this was ridiculously insufficient. He had figured again, to a dollar, and he must have at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars above all his present holdings, or he must close his doors. To-morrow at two o’clock he would know. If he didn’t he would be written down as “failed” on a score of ledgers in Philadelphia.
What a pretty pass for one to come to whose hopes had so recently run so high! There was a loan of one hundred thousand dollars from the Girard National Bank which he was particularly anxious to clear off. This bank was the most important in the city, and if he retained its good will by meeting this loan promptly he might hope for favors in the future whatever happened. Yet, at the moment, he did not see how he could do it. He decided, however, after some reflection, that he would deliver the stocks which Judge Kitchen, Zimmerman, and others had agreed to take and get their checks or cash yet this night. Then he would persuade Stener to let him have a check for the sixty thousand dollars’ worth of city loan he had purchased this morning on ’change. Out of it he could take twenty-five thousand dollars to make up the balance due the bank, and still have thirty-five thousand for himself.
The one unfortunate thing about such an arrangement was that by doing it he was building up a rather complicated situation in regard to these same certificates. Since their purchase in the morning, he had not deposited them in the sinking-fund, where they belonged (they had been delivered to his office by half past one in the afternoon), but, on the contrary, had immediately hypothecated them to cover another loan. It was a risky thing to have done, considering that he was in danger of failing and that he was not absolutely sure of being able to take them up in time.
But, he reasoned, he had a working agreement with the city treasurer (illegal of course), which would make such a transaction rather plausible, and almost all right, even if he failed, and that was that none of his accounts were supposed necessarily to be put straight until the end of the month. If he failed, and the certificates were not in the sinking-fund, he could say, as was the truth, that he was in the habit of taking his time, and had forgotten. This collecting of a check, therefore, for these as yet undeposited certificates would be technically, if not legally and morally, plausible. The city would be out only an additional sixty thousand dollars—making five hundred and sixty thousand dollars all told, which in view of its probable loss of five hundred thousand did not make so much difference. But his caution clashed with his need on this occasion, and he decided that he would not call for the check unless Stener finally refused to aid him with three hundred thousand more, in which case he would claim it as his right. In all likelihood Stener would not think to ask whether the certificates were in the sinking-fund or not. If he did, he would have to lie—that was all.
He drove rapidly back to his office, and, finding Butler’s note, as he expected, wrote a check on his father’s bank for the one hundred thousand dollars which had been placed to his credit by his loving parent, and sent it around to Butler’s office. There was another note, from Albert Stires, Stener’s secretary, advising him not to buy or sell any more city loan—that until further notice such transactions would not be honored. Cowperwood immediately sensed the source of this warning. Stener had been in conference with Butler or Mollenhauer, and had been warned and frightened. Nevertheless, he got in his buggy again and drove directly to the city treasurer’s office.
Since Cowperwood’s visit Stener had talked still more with Sengstack, Strobik, and others, all sent to see that a proper fear of things financial had been put in his heart. The result was decidedly one which spelled opposition to Cowperwood.
Strobik was considerably disturbed himself. He and Wycroft and Harmon had also been using money out of the treasury—much smaller sums, of course, for they had not Cowperwood’s financial imagination—and were disturbed as to how they would return what they owed before the storm broke. If Cowperwood failed, and Stener was short in his accounts, the whole budget might be investigated, and then their loans would be brought to light. The thing to do was to return what they owed, and then, at least, no charge of malfeasance would lie against them.
“Go to Mollenhauer,” Strobik had advised Stener, shortly after Cowperwood had left the latter’s office, “and tell him the whole story. He put you here. He was strong for your nomination. Tell him just where you stand and ask him what to do. He’ll probably be able to tell you. Offer him your holdings to help you out. You have to. You can’t help yourself. Don’t loan Cowperwood another damned dollar, whatever you do. He’s got you in so deep now you can hardly hope to get out. Ask Mollenhauer if he won’t help you to get Cowperwood to put that money back. He may be able to influence him.”
There was more in this conversation to the same effect, and then Stener hurried as fast as his legs could carry him to Mollenhauer’s office. He was so frightened that he could scarcely breathe, and he was quite ready to throw himself on his knees before the big German-American financier and leader. Oh, if Mr. Mollenhauer would only help him! If he could just get out of this without going to jail!
“Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!” he repeated, over and over to himself, as he walked. “What shall I do?”
The attitude of Henry A. Mollenhauer, grim, political boss that he was—trained in a hard school—was precisely the attitude of every such man in all such trying circumstances.
He was wondering, in view of what Butler had told him, just how much he could advantage himself in this situation. If he could, he wanted to get control of whatever street-railway stock Stener now had, without in any way compromising himself. Stener’s shares could easily be transferred on ’change through Mollenhauer’s brokers to a dummy, who would eventually transfer them to himself (Mollenhauer). Stener must be squeezed thoroughly, though, this afternoon, and as for his five hundred thousand dollars’ indebtedness to the treasury, Mollenhauer did not see what could be done about that. If Cowperwood could not pay it, the city would have to lose it; but the scandal must be hushed up until after election. Stener, unless the various party leaders had more generosity than Mollenhauer imagined, would have to suffer exposure, arrest, trial, confiscation of his property, and possibly sentence to the penitentiary, though this might easily be commuted by the governor, once public excitement died down. He did not trouble to think whether Cowperwood was criminally involved or not. A hundred to one he was not. Trust a shrewd man like that to take care of himself. But if there was any way to shoulder the blame on to Cowperwood, and so clear the treasurer and the skirts of the party, he would not object to that. He wanted to hear the full story of Stener’s relations with the broker first. Meanwhile, the thing to do was to seize what Stener had to yield.
The troubled city treasurer, on being shown in Mr. Mollenhauer’s presence, at once sank feebly in a chair and collapsed. He was entirely done for mentally. His nerve was gone, his courage exhausted like a breath.
“Well, Mr. Stener?” queried Mr. Mollenhauer, impressively, pretending not to know what brought him.
“I came about this matter of my loans to Mr. Cowperwood.”
“Well, what about them?”
“Well, he owes me, or the city treasury rather, five hundred thousand dollars, and I understand that he is going to fail and that he can’t pay it back.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Sengstack, and since then Mr. Cowperwood has been to see me. He tells me he must have more money or he will fail and he wants to borrow three hundred thousand dollars more. He says he must have it.”
“So!” said Mr. Mollenhauer, impressively, and with an air of astonishment which he did not feel. “You would not think of doing that, of course. You’re too badly involved as it is. If he wants to know why, refer him to me. Don’t advance him another dollar. If you do, and this case comes to trial, no court would have any mercy on you. It’s going to be difficult enough to do anything for you as it is. However, if you don’t advance him any more—we will see. It may be possible, I can’t say, but at any rate, no more money must leave the treasury to bolster up this bad business. It’s much too difficult as it now is.” He stared at Stener warningly. And he, shaken and sick, yet because of the faint suggestion of mercy involved somewhere in Mollenhauer’s remarks, now slipped from his chair to his knees and folded his hands in the uplifted attitude of a devotee before a sacred image.
“Oh, Mr. Mollenhauer,” he choked, beginning to cry, “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Strobik and Wycroft told me it was all right. You sent me to Cowperwood in the first place. I only did what I thought the others had been doing. Mr. Bode did it, just like I have been doing. He dealt with Tighe and Company. I have a wife and four children, Mr. Mollenhauer. My youngest boy is only seven years old. Think of them, Mr. Mollenhauer! Think of what my arrest will mean to them! I don’t want to go to jail. I didn’t think I was doing anything very wrong—honestly I didn’t. I’ll give up all I’ve got. You can have all my stocks and houses and lots—anything—if you’ll only get me out of this. You won’t let ’em send me to jail, will you?”
His fat, white lips were trembling—wabbling nervously—and big hot tears were coursing down his previously pale but now flushed cheeks. He presented one of those almost unbelievable pictures which are yet so intensely human and so true. If only the great financial and political giants would for once accurately reveal the details of their lives!
Mollenhauer looked at him calmly, meditatively. How often had he seen weaklings no more dishonest than himself, but without his courage and subtlety, pleading to him in this fashion, not on their knees exactly, but intellectually so! Life to him, as to every other man of large practical knowledge and insight, was an inexplicable tangle. What were you going to do about the so-called morals and precepts of the world? This man Stener fancied that he was dishonest, and that he, Mollenhauer, was honest. He was here, self-convicted of sin, pleading to him, Mollenhauer, as he would to a righteous, unstained saint. As a matter of fact, Mollenhauer knew that he was simply shrewder, more far-seeing, more calculating, not less dishonest. Stener was lacking in force and brains—not morals. This lack was his principal crime. There were people who believed in some esoteric standard of right—some ideal of conduct absolutely and very far removed from practical life; but he had never seen them practice it save to their own financial (not moral—he would not say that) destruction. They were never significant, practical men who clung to these fatuous ideals. They were always poor, nondescript, negligible dreamers. He could not have made Stener understand all this if he had wanted to, and he certainly did not want to. It was too bad about Mrs. Stener and the little Steners. No doubt she had worked hard, as had Stener, to get up in the world and be something—just a little more than miserably poor; and now this unfortunate complication had to arise to undo them—this Chicago fire. What a curious thing that was! If any one thing more than another made him doubt the existence of a kindly, overruling Providence, it was the unheralded storms out of clear skies—financial, social, anything you choose—that so often brought ruin and disaster to so many.
“Get Up, Stener,” he said, calmly, after a few moments. “You mustn’t give way to your feelings like this. You must not cry. These troubles are never unraveled by tears. You must do a little thinking for yourself. Perhaps your situation isn’t so bad.”
As he was saying this Stener was putting himself back in his chair, getting out his handkerchief, and sobbing hopelessly in it.
“I’ll do what I can, Stener. I won’t promise anything. I can’t tell you what the result will be. There are many peculiar political forces in this city. I may not be able to save you, but I am perfectly willing to try. You must put yourself absolutely under my direction. You must not say or do anything without first consulting with me. I will send my secretary to you from time to time. He will tell you what to do. You must not come to me unless I send for you. Do you understand that thoroughly?”
“Yes, Mr. Mollenhauer.”
“Well, now, dry your eyes. I don’t want you to go out of this office crying. Go back to your office, and I will send Sengstack to see you. He will tell you what to do. Follow him exactly. And whenever I send for you come at once.”
He got up, large, self-confident, reserved. Stener, buoyed up by the subtle reassurance of his remarks, recovered to a degree his equanimity. Mr. Mollenhauer, the great, powerful Mr. Mollenhauer was going to help him out of his scrape. He might not have to go to jail after all. He left after a few moments, his face a little red from weeping, but otherwise free of telltale marks, and returned to his office.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Sengstack called on him for the second time that day—Abner Sengstack, small, dark-faced, club-footed, a great sole of leather three inches thick under his short, withered right leg, his slightly Slavic, highly intelligent countenance burning with a pair of keen, piercing, inscrutable black eyes. Sengstack was a fit secretary for Mollenhauer. You could see at one glance that he would make Stener do exactly what Mollenhauer suggested. His business was to induce Stener to part with his street-railway holdings at once through Tighe & Co., Butler’s brokers, to the political sub-agent who would eventually transfer them to Mollenhauer. What little Stener received for them might well go into the treasury. Tighe & Co. would manage the “’change” subtleties of this without giving any one else a chance to bid, while at the same time making it appear an open-market transaction. At the same time Sengstack went carefully into the state of the treasurer’s office for his master’s benefit—finding out what it was that Strobik, Wycroft, and Harmon had been doing with their loans. Via another source they were ordered to disgorge at once or face prosecution. They were a part of Mollenhauer’s political machine. Then, having cautioned Stener not to set over the remainder of his property to any one, and not to listen to any one, most of all to the Machiavellian counsel of Cowperwood, Sengstack left.
Needless to say, Mollenhauer was greatly gratified by this turn of affairs. Cowperwood was now most likely in a position where he would have to come and see him, or if not, a good share of the properties he controlled were already in Mollenhauer’s possession. If by some hook or crook he could secure the remainder, Simpson and Butler might well talk to him about this street-railway business. His holdings were now as large as any, if not quite the largest.