Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Criminals -- Fiction; Wall Street (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
“Come with me, James,” Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old
coachman.
“Get on the job!” whispered Robison to Kidder. “Don't be bluffed.
You've got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a
lifetime!”
Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's
eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great
financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but
all efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see
perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that
Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall
Street and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was,
moreover, fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary
say: “Mrs. Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about
nine-twenty in the carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the
footman helped him into the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I
said, 'Nothing that I know of.'”
Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and
hastened back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the
coachman--a man above suspicion--was carried on by the other partners.
Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the
patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin:
_W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near
Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James
Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family
from boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual.
He was smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily
newspapers. These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the
coupé when it reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets,
where the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are
unable to say where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs.
Garrettson is equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as
usual. The butler saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes
this remarkable is that Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and
not once in forty years has he failed to reach his office before ten
o'clock. His disappearance from the coupé is not thought to be a joke;
but, on the other hand, there is no reason to apprehend a tragedy. “It
is mysterious--that's all,” remarked a prominent Wall Street man; “and
mysteries are not always profitable in the stock-market!”_
“How long,” inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth,
“will it be before the _Evening Planet_, with your account of the
non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?”
“Well,” said Kidder, looking a trifle important, “if it had been any one
else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in
verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!”
“As quickly as that?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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