"I will surely make Hugh give up the million. You shall have your
three-quarters, for it would be ruin to Worthington to drag out
his relations with Durham."
"Play the honest Iago. Keep your counsel. Dismiss this from you
mind. Make love to some pretty girl, amuse yourself. Do anything
but drink or gamble. Keep up a jolly mien. Go in to the summer
pleasures a little. It will throw these two crafty ones off their
guard. The weeks will soon roll around. I will cable you of my
return.
"Then we will jointly descend upon this new combination of
Worthington, Durham, and Ferris. But I must first be in Detroit,
back in my impregnable railroad law fortress. Then, at my nod,
he settles or down come the gates of Gaza on him! Remember that
you have no one in your matrimonial eye. I want to win Francine
Delacroix's home from these robbers. And then install the little
dainty therein. I will go in and win for you!"
The college comrades had now unravelled all the past, and their
Sunday outing had after all been a jolly one. Thoroughly reassured,
Clayton had given Jack Witherspoon his whole history, and the future
campaign was laid out in all its details.
"As for these Fidelity Company men," said Jack, "you can give them
the go by in only frequenting secluded places.
"As long as you avoid the public resorts of New York, they cannot
reach you. But keep your eyes always open. And, remember, secrecy
above all. If Hugh Worthington should divine our plan to unveil
his devilment, you might be the victim of some 'strange accident!'
"Money has a long arm in these days," ominously said the lawyer,
"and, it can strike with remorseless power. So, keep on here, but
look out for yourself.
"I shall not come back to your rooms. I will send for my luggage;
go down to the Astor House, and you must not be seen in the streets
with me. I want Worthington to think that I have dug up his villainy
all alone.
"Otherwise you would suffer in some strange way.
"When I open my battery, you must publicly resign your place by a
simple telegram. And then jump out of New York to some secret haunt
until I telegraph you to come to Detroit and make your deeds for
the stolen property."
Clayton saw the cogency of his friend's reasoning, and, after
agreeing to meet Witherspoon in the Astor Rotunda each evening until
the sailing of the "Fuerst Bismarck," he proceeded to the office
to take up the white man's burden.
Swinging down Fourteenth Street from Broadway, he paused once more
to look at the lovely Danube scene smiling out from the window of
the Newport Art Gallery.
It was an exquisite artist proof and bore the name of the Viennese
artist and a pencilled address. "I'll buy it at once," thought the
man whose memory now brought back that lovely, wistful face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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