"Seconded and carried by a two-thirds vote of stockholders," chirped Fell in his toneless voice. "So approved and ordered. For secretary----"

"Our third stockholder," put in Lucie. "He'll have to be an officer, of course!"

"Seconded and carried. So approved and ordered." Mr. Fell rapped on the table. "We will now have the report of our expert geologist in further detail than yet given."

Gramont told of finding the oil; he was not carried away by the gay mock-solemnity of Jachin Fell, and he remained grave. He went on to relate how he had secured the lease option upon the adjoining land, and suggested that other such options be secured at once upon other property in the neighbourhood. He handed the option to Fell, who laid it with the other doc.u.ments.

"And now I have a proposal of my own to make," said Jachin Fell. He appeared sobered, as though influenced by Gramont's manner. "Although we've actually found oil on the place, there is no means of telling how much we'll find when we drill, or what quality it will be. Is that not correct, Mr. Gramont?"

"Entirely so," a.s.sented Gramont. "The chances are, of course, that we'll find oil in both quality and quant.i.ty. On the other hand, the seepage may be all there is. Oil is a gamble from start to finish. Personally, however, I would gamble heavily on this prospect."

"Naturally," said Mr. Fell. "However, I have been talking over the oil business with a number of men actively engaged in it in the Houma field. I think that I may safely say that I can dispose of the mineral rights to our company's land, together with this lease option secured yesterday on the adjoining land, for a sum approximating one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; reserving to our company a sixteenth interest in any oil located on the property. Personally, I believe this can be done, and I am willing to undertake the negotiations if so empowered by a note of our stockholders. Lucie, you do not mind if we smoke, I know? Let me offer you a cigar, Mr. Gramont."

Gramont took one of the El Reys offered him, and lighted it amid a startled silence. Fell's proposal came to him as a distinct shock, and already he was viewing it in the light of prompt suspicion.

"Why," exclaimed Lucie, wide-eyed, "that would be fifty thousand dollars to each of us, and not a cent expended!"

"In case it went through on that basis," added Jachin Fell, his eyes on Gramont, "I would vote that the entire sum go to Miss Ledanois. Her land alone is involved. If she then wishes to invest with us in a new company to exploit other fields, well and good. One moment, my dear! Do not protest this suggestion. The sixteenth interest reserved to our company would provide both Mr. Gramont and me with a substantial reward for our slight activity in the matter. Don't forget that interest, for it might amount to a large figure."

"Right," a.s.sented Gramont. "I would second your vote, Mr. Fell; I think the idea very just and proper that Miss Ledanois should receive the entire amount."

Lucie seemed a trifle bewildered.

"But--but, Henry!" she exclaimed. "What do you think of selling the lease to these other men?"

Gramont eyed the smoke from his cigar reflectively, quite conscious that Mr. Fell was regarding him very steadily.

"I can't answer for you, Lucie," he said at last. "I would not presume to advise."

Mr. Fell looked slightly relieved. Lucie, however, persisted.

"What would you do, then, if you were in my place?"

Gramont shrugged his shoulders.

"In that case," he said, slowly, "I would gamble. We know oil is in that ground; we know that it has been found in large quant.i.ties at Houma or near there. To my mind there is no doubt whatever that under your land lies a part of the same oil field--and a rich one. To sell fifteen-sixteenths of that oil for a hundred and fifty thousand is to give it away. I would sooner take my chances on striking a twenty-thousand barrel gusher and having the whole of it to myself. However, by all means disregard my words; this is not my affair."

Lucie glanced at Jachin Fell.

"You think it is the best thing to do; Henry does not," mused the girl. "I know that you're both thinking of me--of getting that money for me. Just the same, Uncle Jachin, I--I won't be prudent! I'll gamble! Besides," she added with smiling navete, "I'm not a bit willing to give up having a real oil company the very minute it is formed! So we'll outvote you, Uncle Jachin."

Despite their tension, the two men smiled at her final words.

"That motion of mine has not yet been made," said Fell. Her rejection of his proposal had no effect upon his shyly smooth manner. "Will you excuse us one moment, Lucie? If I may speak with you in the outer office, Mr. Gramont, I would like to show you some confidential matters which might influence your decision in this regard."

Lucie nodded and leaned back in her chair.

Gramont accompanied Fell to the outer office, where Fell sent the stenographer to keep Lucie company. When the door had closed and they were alone, Fell took a chair and motioned Gramont to another. A cold brusquerie was evident in his manner.

"Gramont," he said, briskly, "I am going to make that motion, and I want you to vote with me against Lucie. Unfortunately, I have only a third of the voting power. I might argue Lucie into agreement, but she is a difficult person to argue with. So I mean that you shall vote with me--and I'm going to put my cards on the table before you."

"Ah!" Gramont regarded him coolly. "Your cards will have to be powerful persuaders!"

"They are," returned Jachin Fell. "I have been carefully leading up to this point--the point of selling. I have practically arranged the whole affair. I propose to sell the mineral rights in that land, largely on the strength of the signed statement you gave me a few moments ago. That statement is going to be given wide publicity, and it will be substantiated by other reports on the oil seepage."

"You interest me strangely." Gramont leaned back in his chair. The eyes of the two men met and held in cold challenge, cold hostility. "What's your motive, Fell?"

"I'll tell you: it's the interest of Lucie Ledanois." In the gaze of Fell was a strange earnestness. In those pale gray eyes was now a light of fierce sincerity which startled and warned Gramont. Fell continued with a trace of excitement in his tone.

"I've known that girl all her life, Gramont, and I love her as a father. I loved her mother before her--in a different way. I can tell you that at this moment Lucie is poor. Her house is mortgaged; she does not know, in fact, just how poor she really is. Of course, she will accept no money from me in gift. But for her to get a hundred and fifty thousand in a business deal will solve all her problems, set her on her feet for life!"

"I see," said Gramont with harsh impulse. "What do you get out of it?"

He regretted the words instantly. Fell half rose from his chair as though to answer them with a blow. Gramont, aware of his mistake, hastened to retract it.

"Forgive me, Fell," he said, quickly. "That was an unjust insinuation, and I know it. Yet, I can't find myself in agreement with you. I'm firmly set in the belief that a fortune in oil will be made off that land of Lucie's. I simply can't agree to sell out for a comparative pittance, and I'll fight to persuade her against doing it! As I look at it, the thing would not be just to her. I'm thinking, as you are, only of her interest."

A light of sardonic mockery glittered in the pale eyes of Jachin Fell.

"You are basing your firm conviction," he queried, "very largely upon your discovery of the free oil?"

"To a large extent, yes."

"I thought you would," and Fell laughed harshly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said the other, fiercely earnest, "that for a month I've worked to sell that land! I had young Maillard hooked and landed--it would have been poetic justice to make him hand over a small fortune to Lucie! But that deal is off, since he's in jail. And do you know why young Maillard wanted to buy the land? For the same reason you don't want to sell. I sent him out there and he saw that oil seepage, as I meant that he should! He thought he would skin Lucie out of her land, not dreaming that I had prepared a nice little trap to swallow him. And now you come along----"

"Man, what are you driving at?" exclaimed Gramont. He was startled by what he read in the other man's face.

"Merely that I planted that oil seepage myself--or had it done by men I could trust," said Jachin Fell, calmly. He sat back in his chair and took up his cigar with an air of finality. "The confession is shameless. I love Lucie more than my own ethical purity. Besides, I intend to wrong no one in the matter."

Gramont sat stunned beyond words. The oil seepage--a plant!

The thing could have been very easily done, of course. As he sat silent there unfolded before him the motives that underlay Fell's entire action. The amazing disclosure of Jachin Fell's intrigue to enrich the girl left him bewildered. This, coupled with what he had learned on the preceding day about Jachin Fell, put his own course of action into grave perplexity.

There was no reason to doubt what Fell said. Gramont believed the little man sincere in his love for Lucie.

"No matter what the outcome, your reputation will not be affected," said Fell, quietly. "The company which will buy this land of Lucie's is controlled by me. You understand? Even if no oil is ever found there, I shall see to it that you will not be injured because of that signed statement."

Gramont nodded dull comprehension. He realized that Fell had devised this whole business scheme with infernal ingenuity; had devised it in order to take a hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of his own pocket and put it into that of Lucie. It was a present which the girl would never accept as a gift, but which, if it came in the way of business, would make her financially independent. n.o.body would be defrauded. There was no chicanery about it. The thing was straight enough.

"That's not quite all of my plan," pursued Fell, as though reading Gramont's unuttered thoughts. "The minute this news becomes public, the minute your statement is published, there will be a tremendous boom in that whole section. I shall take charge of Lucie's money, and within three weeks I should double it, treble it, for her. Before the boom bursts she will be out of it all, and wealthy. Now, my dear Gramont, I do not presume that you will still refuse to vote with me? I have been quite frank, you see."

Gramont stirred in his chair.

"Yes!" he said, low-voiced. "Yes, by heavens, I do refuse!"

With an effort he checked hotly impulsive words that were on his tongue. One word now might ruin him. He dared not say that he did not want to see Fell's money pa.s.s into the hands of Lucie--money gained by fraud and theft and crime! He dared not give his reasons for refusing. He meant now to crush Fell utterly--but one wrong word would give the man full warning. He must say nothing.

"It's not straight work, Fell. Regardless of your motives, I refuse to join you."

Jachin Fell sighed slightly, and laid down his cigar with precision.

"Gramont," his voice came with the softly purring menace of a tiger's throat-tone, "I shall now adjourn this company meeting for two days, until Sat.u.r.day morning, in order to give you a little time to reconsider. To-day is Thursday. By Sat.u.r.day----"

"I need no time," said Gramont.

"But you will need it. I suppose you know that Bob Maillard has been arrested for parricide? You are aware of the evidence against him--all circ.u.mstantial?"

Gramont frowned. "What has that got to do with our present business?"

"Quite a bit, I fancy." A thin smile curved the lips of Jachin Fell. "Maillard is not guilty of the murder--but you are."

"Liar!" Gramont started from his chair as those three words burned into him. "Liar! Why, you know that I went home----"

"Ah, wait!" Fell lifted his hand for peace. His voice was calm. "Ansley and I both saw you depart, certainly. We have since learned that you did not reach home until some time after midnight. You have positively no alibi, Gramont. You may allege, of course, that you were wandering the streets----"

"As I was!" cried Gramont, heatedly.

"Then prove it, my dear fellow; prove it--if you can. Now, we shall keep Lucie out of all this. What remains? I know that you were the Midnight Masquer. My man, Ben Chacherre, can prove by another man who accompanied him that the Masquer's loot was taken from your car. A dictograph in the private office, yonder, has a record of the talk between us of the other morning, in which you made patent confession to being the Masquer.

"Once let me hand this array of evidence over to the district attorney, and you will most certainly stand trial. And, if you do stand trial, I can promise you faithfully that you will meet conviction. I have friends, you see, and many of them are influential in such small matters."

It was not a nice smile that curved the lips of Fell.

Gramont choked back any response, holding himself to silence with a firm will. He dared say nothing, lest he say too much. He saw that Fell could indeed make trouble for him--and that he must strike his own blow at Fell without great delay. It was a battle, now; a fight to the end.

Fell regarded Gramont cheerfully, seeming to take this crushed silence as evidence of his own triumph.

"Further," he added, "your man Hammond is now in jail at Houma, as you know, for the murder of the sheriff. Now, my influence is not confined to this city, Gramont, I may be able to clear Hammond of this charge--if you decide to vote with me. I may keep what I know about the Midnight Masquer from the press and from the district attorney--if you decide to vote with me. You comprehend?"

Gramont nodded. He saw now why Fell wanted to "get something" on Hammond. Fell had rightly reasoned that Gramont would do more to save Hammond than to save himself.

"You think I murdered Maillard, then?" he asked.

"Gramont, I don't know what to think, and that's the honest truth!" answered Fell, with a steady regard. "But I am absolutely determined to put this oil deal across, to make Lucie Ledanois at least independent, if not wealthy. I can do it, I've made all my plans to do it, and--I will do it!

"We'll hold another meeting day after to-morrow--Sat.u.r.day morning." Fell rose. "That will give me time to conclude all arrangements. I trust, Mr. Gramont, that you will vote with me for the adjournment?"

"Yes," said Gramont, dully. "I will."

"Thank you," and Jachin Fell bowed slightly, not without a trace of mockery in his air.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Coin Falls Heads.

Gramont sat in his own room that afternoon. It seemed to him that he had been away from the city for weeks and months. Yet only a day had intervened. He sat fingering the only piece of mail that had come to him--a notice from the post of the American Legion which he had joined, to the effect that there would be a meeting that Thursday evening. Only Thursday! And to-morrow was Friday.

If he was to effect anything against the headquarters of Fell's gang he must act on the morrow or not at all. Gumberts was to be out there to-morrow. Gumberts would talk with the ratty little man of the projecting teeth and adenoids, would find Gramont had imposed upon the fellow, and there would be upheavals. The gang would take to flight, certainly, or at least make certain that Gramont's mouth was shut.

He sat fingering the postal from the Legion, and turning over events in his mind. Against Fell he had particular animosity. All that the little gray man had done had been done with the thought of Lucie Ledanois as a spur.

"Yet he can't realize that Lucie wouldn't have the money if she knew that it came from criminal sources," he thought, smiling bitterly. "He's been scheming a long time to make a fortune for her, and now he's determined to push it through regardless of me. It was clever of him to jail Hammond! He guessed that I'd do a great deal to save the redhead--more even than to save myself. Mighty clever! And now he's pretty sure that he's got me between a cleft stick, where I can't wriggle.

"If I'm to strike a blow, I'll have to do it to-morrow--before noon to-morrow, also. I'll have to leave here mighty early, and get there before Gumberts does. What was it Hammond said that day about him--that n.o.body in the country had ever caught Memphis Izzy? I bet I could do it, and his whole gang with him--if I knew how. There's the rub! Fell won't hesitate a minute in having me arrested. And as he said, once he got me arrested, I'd be gone. He must be able to exert powerful influence, that man!"

Should he strike or not? If he struck, he might expect the full weight of Jachin Fell's vengeance--unless his blow would include Fell among the victims.

Gramont was still pondering this dilemma when Ben Chacherre arrived.

Gramont heard the man's voice on the stairs. Ben's impudence, perhaps added to his name and the Creole French upon his lips, had carried him past the concierge unannounced, although not without a continued exchange of repartee that served to give Gramont warning of the visitor. Smiling grimly, Gramont drew a coin from his pocket, and flipped it.

The coin fell heads. He pocketed it again as Ben Chacherre knocked, and opened the door.

"Ah, Chacherre!" he exclaimed. "Come in."

Ben swaggered inside and closed the door.

"Brought a message for you, Mr. Gramont," he said, jauntily, and extended a note.

Gramont tore open the envelope and read a curt communication: Kindly let me know your answer as soon as possible. By to-morrow evening at the latest. It will be necessary to arrange affairs for Sat.u.r.day.

JACHIN FELL.

To arrange affairs! Fell was taking for granted that Gramont would give an a.s.sent, under force of persuasion, to the scheme. He would probably have everything in readiness, and if a.s.sured by Friday night of Gramont's a.s.sent, would then pull his strings and perhaps complete the whole deal before the following Monday.

The meeting of the company had been adjourned to Sat.u.r.day morning. Gramont thought a moment, then went to his buhl escritoire and opened it. Chacherre had already taken a seat. Gramont wrote: MY DEAR MR. FELL, If you will arrange the company meeting for to-morrow evening, say nine o'clock, at your office, I think that everything may then be arranged. As I may not see Miss Ledanois in the meantime, will you be kind enough to a.s.sure her presence at the meeting?

He addressed an envelope to Fell's office, and then stamped and pocketed it.

"Well, Chacherre," he said, rising and returning to the Creole, "any further news from Houma? They haven't found the real murderer yet?"

The other came to his feet with an exclamation of surprise. As he did so, Gramont's fist caught him squarely on the point of the jaw.

Chacherre crumpled back across his chair, senseless for the moment.

"I'm afraid to take any chances with you, my fine bird," said Gramont, rubbing his knuckles. "You're too clever by far, and too handy with your weapons!"