Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Criminals -- Fiction; Wall Street (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
“You will get a first-class ticket from New York to Paris and return,
and hotel coupons for ten days in the Hotel Beraud, in Paris. You will
leave, in all probability, on February first, arrive on the eighth. On
the ninth you will go to the American Express office and cash some of
your checks. They will serve to identify you. Do it again on February
tenth. At exactly eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh you will
whisper to the mail clerk: 'It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh.
Give me the eleven letters for W. W. Lowry.' If you do not receive
eleven letters, don't take any, but return the next day at precisely the
same hour, and say exactly the same words. What was it I said you should
say to the correspondence clerk?”
“It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven letters
for W. W. Lowry,” repeated the man.
“Right! When you get the eleven letters you will bring them unopened to
me--here. Now go to Mrs. Brady's boarding-house, 299 East Seventy-third
Street; tell her you are Mr. Lowry. Your room and board are paid for.
Make it a point to be at the house every day at eleven in the morning
until after luncheon and at six p.m. You must not go out evenings under
any circumstances. I'll allow you eleven dollars a week for tobacco
and will bring you some clothes. Come back Wednesday at eleven-thirty.
Here's this week's eleven dollars. That will be all.”
“That's all right, my friend; but--” began the man.
Lovell frowned and interrupted sharply:
“No questions answered.”
“I wasn't going to ask; I was going to remark that you would have to
show me that one thousand dollars for the week's work.”
“Next Wednesday I'll take you to the American Express Company. I'll give
you one thousand dollars and you will buy the checks yourself and sign
them. I'll keep them until sailing-day and I'll give them to you on the
steamer. Forging,” he went on with a sneer, “is signing another man's
name with intent to defraud. You will sign your own name--your own
signature--on travelers' checks that you yourself have paid for. See? A
thousand dollars for asking for eleven letters and bringing them to me,
unopened, is good graft, friend. If you make good I'll keep you busy.”
“You are on!” said W. W. Lowry.
“No drinking. Above all things, no talking! I may be crazy, my friend;
but what would you be if you gave up a job worth a thousand dollars a
week and all expenses paid? Remember our motto: No questions answered!”
“Damned good rule!” agreed W. W. Lowry, with conviction.
“Look out for reporters and for men who say they are reporters!” warned
W. W. Lovell. “When you go out, close the door quickly behind you and
hang this sign on the door-knob. I don't want to see anybody.”
W. W. Lowry obeyed. The sign said:
POSITION FILLED
III
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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