Gresham went away both puzzled and annoyed. It was three o'clock before he found Collaton; and that featureless young man, whose lack of visible eyebrows and lashes was a constant annoyance to the fastidious Gresham, was in a high state of elation.

"Well, we get back your fifteen thousand," he exulted after they were safely in Gresham's apartments. "Of course Jacobs gets five thousand for engineering the deal, but that gives us five thousand apiece.

Jacobs was told--about eleven o'clock--that the money was there."

"Keep my share; but why didn't you send me word?" snarled Gresham. "I nearly put my foot in it by having a man with whom Gamble is doing business inquire about him at the Fourth National. In place of injuring his credit, we've strengthened it."

"Good work!" approved Collaton. "I hope he makes all kinds of money."

"I don't!" snapped Gresham. "Did you read the papers this morning?"

"I read the racing and base-ball returns."

"There was more to interest you in the news. Gamble has a big hotel proposition on--and I want it stopped. Can you get another attachment against him for about fifty thousand dollars?"

"It's risky!" And Collaton looked about him furtively. "It's easy enough to fake an old note for money--"

"You must not say 'fake' to me. I will not countenance any crooked business."

"To dig up an old note for money I am supposed to have borrowed and spent--"

"Not supposed."

"For money I borrowed and spent on the work out there--and have a quiet suit entered by one of my pet a.s.sa.s.sins in Fliegel's court, have the summons served and confess judgment. Johnny is sucker enough to confess judgment, too, rather than repudiate a debt which he can not prove he does not owe; but I've already milked that scheme so dry that I'm afraid of it."

"You're afraid of everything," Gresham charged him with the scorn one coward feels for another. "Your operations out there were spread over ten thousand acres of ground; and it would take a dozen experts six months, without any books or papers to guide them, to make even an approximate estimate of your legitimate expenditures."

"I don't know," hesitated Collaton with a shake of his head--"I only touched the high places in the actual work out there. I believe I was a sucker at that, Gresham. If I had buckled down to it, like Gamble does, we could have made a fortune out of that scheme. He's a wonder!"

"He has wonderful luck," corrected Gresham. "I tried my best to scare Courtney away from him with that attachment, but he insisted on clinging to his Johnny Gamble; so we'll hand him enough of Johnny by laying a fifty-thousand-dollar attachment against his property."

"You're a funny cuss," said Collaton, puzzled. "If you wanted to soak him for this fifty thousand why did you try to scare Courtney off?"

"Can't you understand that I'm not after the money?" demanded Gresham.

"I've explained that to you before. I want Gamble broke, discredited, and so involved that he can never transact any business in New York."

"What's he done to you?" inquired Collaton. "He must be winning a stand-in with your girl."

"My private affairs are none of your concern!" Gresham indignantly flared.

"All right, governor," a.s.sented Collaton a trifle sullenly. "I'll fake that note for you to-night; and--"

"I told you I would not have anything to do with any crooked work,"

Gresham sharply reprimanded him.

"Oh, shut up!" growled Collaton. "You give me the cramps. You're a worse crook than I am!"

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH CONSTANCE SHOWS FURTHER INTEREST IN JOHNNY'S AFFAIRS

On Wednesday morning Mr. Courtney, sitting as rigidly at his desk as if he were in church, was handed the card of Morton Washer. He laid the card face down and placed a paper-weight on it, as if he feared it might get away. He turned a callous eye on his secretary and, in his driest and most husky tones, directed: "Tell Mr. Washer I will see him in five minutes."

During that five minutes Mr. Courtney signed letters as solemnly as a judge p.r.o.nouncing a death sentence. At last he paused and looked at himself for a solid half-minute in the bookcase mirror across from his desk. Apparently he was as mournful as an undertaker, but at the end of the inspection his mouth suddenly stretched in a wide grin, which bristled the silver-white beard upon his cheeks; his eyes screwed themselves up into knots of jovial wrinkles and he winked--actually winked--at his reflection in the gla.s.s! Thereupon he straightened his face and sent for Morton Washer.

Mr. Washer, proprietor of two of the largest hotels in New York, and half a dozen enormous winter and summer places, looked no more like a boniface than he did like a little girl on communion Sunday. He was a small, wispy, waspish fellow with a violently upright, raging pompadour, a mustache which, in spite of careful attempts at waxing, persisted in sticking straight forward, and a sharp hard nose which had apparently been tempered to a delicate purple.

"Hear you've revived your hotel project," he said to Mr. Courtney.

"No," denied Courtney. "Sold the property."

"I know," agreed Mr. Washer with absolute disbelief. "What'll you take for it?"

"I told you it was sold. Here's the contract." And, with great satisfaction, Courtney pa.s.sed over the doc.u.ment.

"Two million six hundred and fifty!" snorted Washer. "That's half a million more than it's worth."

"You told my friends you intended to buy the railroad plot at three and a half," Courtney gladly reminded him.

"It's four hundred feet deep."

"You said you only wanted two hundred feet square, which is the size of this plot--and this is an equally good location."

"I know," admitted Washer, contemptuous of all such trifles. "What will you take for the property--spot cash?"

"It's sold, I tell you. If you want to buy it see Mr. Gamble."

"Who's Gamble?"

"The man who is organizing the Terminal Hotel Company."

"How much stock has he subscribed?"

"You will have to see Mr. Gamble about that."

"Did you take any?"

"Half a million."

"Humph! You could afford to. Now give me the straight of it, Courtney: Is it any use to talk to you?"

"Not a bit. You'll--"

"I know. I'll have to see Mr. Gamble! Well, where do I find him?"