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Page 75
The traffic manager at first reached instinctively for his telegraphic
cipher code. But he reflected that this was not code-phrasing. He read
the paragraph again and was obliged to remind himself that his only
daughter was already the wife of a man he knew to be in excellent
health. Also he was acquainted with no one named Julia.
He copied from the letter that portion of it which seemed relevant, and
destroyed the original. He had never heard it said of Breede; but he
knew there are times when, under continued mental strain, the most
abstemious of men will relax.
XII
When Bean emerged from the office-building that afternoon he was closely
scrutinized by an inconspicuous man who, just inside the door by the
cigar-stand, had been conversing with Tully. Bean saw Tully, but strode
by that gentleman with head erect, chest expanded, and waist drawn in.
Tully was cut. And Bean did not, of course, notice the inconspicuous man
with whom Tully talked.
This person, however, followed Bean to the street, where he seemed a
little taken aback to observe the young man very authoritatively enter a
large red touring car and utter a command to its driver with an air of
seasoned ownership. The red car moved slowly up Broadway. The
inconspicuous man surveyed the passing vehicles, and seemed relieved
when he discovered an empty taxi-cab going north. He hailed it and
entered, giving directions to its guide that entailed much pointing to
the large red touring car now a block distant.
Thereafter, until late at night, the red car was trailed by the
taxi-cab. At six o'clock the car stopped at a place of refreshment
overlooking the river, where the trailed youth consumed a modest dinner,
which he concluded with a radiant raspberry ice. A little later he
re�ntered the red car and was driven aimlessly for a couple of hours
through leafy by-ways. The inconspicuous man became of the opinion that
the occupant of the red car was cunningly endeavouring to conceal his
true destination.
The car returned to the place of refreshment at nine-thirty, where the
young man again ordered a raspberry ice, with which he trifled for the
better part of an hour. He betrayed to the alert but inconspicuous
person who sat near him, by his expectant manner of scanning newcomers'
faces, that he had hoped to meet some one here.
This expectation was disappointed. The watchful person suspected that
the youth's confederates might have been warned. The quarry at length
departed, in obvious disappointment, and was driven to his abode in a
decent neighbourhood. The taxi-cab was near enough to the red car when
this place was reached to enable its occupant to hear the young man
request it for eight the following morning. The young man entered what a
sign at the doorway declared to be "Choice Steam-heated Apartments," and
the occupant of the taxi-cab was presently overheard by the janitor of
the apartments expostulating with the vehicle's driver about the sum
demanded for his evening's recreation. He was heard to denounce the
fellow as "a thief and a robber!" and to make a vicious threat
concerning his license.
Bean was face to face with Ram-tah, demanding whatever strength might
flow to him from that august personage. A crisis had come. Either he was
a king, or he was not a king. If a king, he must do as kings would do.
If not a king, he would doubtless behave like a rabbit.
But strength flowed to him as always from that calm, strong face. In
Ram-tah's presence he could believe no weakness of himself. Put him in
jail, would they? A man who had not only once ruled a mighty people in
peace, but who had, some hundreds of centuries later, made Europe
tremble under the tread of his victorious armies. Ram-tah had been no
fighter--but Napoleon! He, Bunker Bean, was a wise king, yet a mighty
warrior. Beat him down, would they? Merely because he wanted to become a
director in their company! Well, they would find out who they were
trying to keep off that Board. What if they did put him in jail? A good
lawyer would get him out in a few minutes with a writ of something or
other, a stay of proceedings, a demurrer, a legal technicality. He read
the papers. Lawyers were always getting Wall Street speculators out of
jail by some one of those devices; and if every other means failed a
legal technicality did the work. And the papers always called the
released man a Napoleon of Finance. It wasn't going to be so bad.
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