In a moment the man stood at his elbow with the tense erect bearing of an orderly on the field of battle. The quick nervous touch of the master's hand on that button had told to his sensitive ears the story of a coming life-and-death struggle. His words came with sharp nervous energy: "Yes sir?" The financier slowly drew the big cigar from his mouth and spoke in low tones: "A meeting of the Allied Bankers here in 30 minutes. No telephone messages. A personal summons to each. They enter one at a time that no one on the outside sees them come. You understand?" "I understand." Bivens raised his finger in warning. "Your life on the issue." Trembling with excitement the secretary turned and quickly left the room. CHAPTER V GATHERING CLOUDS The sensation which the District Attorney sprang in the sudden indictment of the president of the Iroquois Company was profound and far-reaching. The day before the indictment was presented to the Grand Jury stocks began to tumble without any apparent cause. The "big interests" who had hitherto counted on exhaustless funds to sustain them in any market they might choose to make were paralyzed by the suddenness of the attack on stocks and the daring of its hidden leader. When the warrant for the arrest of the great man had been served and he was admitted to bail to await his coming trial, there was a feeble rally in the market, but the rats quickly began to desert a sinking ship. The president under indictment had ceased to be a power. There was a wild scramble of his associates who were equally guilty to save their own skins. The press, which at first denounced Stuart, now boldly demanded the merciless prosecution of all the guilty. And they hailed the brilliant young District Attorney as the coming man. In the meantime all kinds of securities continued to tumble. For six consecutive days stocks had fallen with scarcely an hour's temporary rally. Every effort of the bull operators, who had ruled the market for the two years past, to stem the tide was futile. Below the surface, in the silent depths of growing suspicion and fear, an army of sappers and miners under the eye of one man were digging at the foundations of the business world--the faith of man in his fellow-man. Each day there was a crash and each day the little financier and his unscrupulous allies marked a new victim. The next day the death notice was posted on a new door, and when the bomb had exploded they picked up the pieces and moved to a new attack. In the midst of the campaign for the destruction of public credit which Bivens and his associates, the Allied Bankers, were conducting with such profound secrecy and such remarkable results, when their profits had piled up into millions, a bomb was suddenly exploded under their own headquarters. The Van Dam Trust Company was put under the ban of the New York Clearing House. The act was a breach of faith, utterly unwarranted by any known law of the game. But it was done.