“After the failure of his mine he had a hard time, and everything seemed against him. Then, a few years ago, he got control of a company to develop water power in northern California—the Shasta Company, it was called. From this he went into land and timber business, and finally began to build a railroad, the Pacific Northern. From time to time, as he needed money for his various enterprises, he applied to us, and we found the capital for him when he could not get it in the States. It was our capital, mostly, that went into the railroad, which was to go northward into a region controlled by other roads. That started the opposition in California to him and his schemes, and trouble quickly developed. Your countrymen, Mr. Brainard, are not always scrupulous in the weapons they use. These hostile parties had bought up one of the judges in California, and they struck their blow while Mr. Krutzmacht was in New York a month or more ago conferring with our representative. It had been arranged to raise the necessary funds to pay the interest due on the outstanding bonds, and to complete the railroad. Then Mr. Krutzmacht disappeared, the California court granted the other side their receivership, and he was found dead in a New York hospital!” “It must have been foul play!” “What do you mean?” “As I figure it out, those crooks must have been watching him all the time in New York, and when they learned that he had succeeded in raising this money he needed to keep his property out of their hands, they did not wait. They—” “What?” the banker demanded. “Made away with him—drugged him, probably, then chucked him out of a cab into the street.” “Quite possibly that was it. Your people do such peculiar things! Well, the crooks, as you call them, got their receivership for the Shasta Company—the parent company—the very day he died. Krutzmacht was a fighter, a hard man to conquer, and if he had lived, I have very little doubt that he would have succeeded in worsting his enemies.” “And now?” Brainard asked with a smile. The banker made a comical gesture. “The receiver found very little to receive, naturally, after your visit. Of course, you can understand what they were after was not the Shasta Company, but its rich subsidiaries. You had left the shell, of which the Court has taken physical possession.” Brainard laughed. “The old boy knew what he was about,” he said. “There was no time to lose! Tell me,” he asked abruptly, “do you know whether Krutzmacht had any relatives—any heirs?” “He must have some connections at Mannheim. Krutzmacht is a common enough name there. But I do not think that any of them were closely related to Mr. Herbert Krutzmacht.” “I don’t mean thirty-third cousins. Had he a wife or children?” The banker hesitated, and then said: