The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Some of those who had survived had faith in Bentley, and they had taken his unsecured word and given him a fresh start. But that terrible hammering had burned some of the iron out of his soul, so that the circling mists at the railroad crossing were a cool, quiet refuge undisturbed by the clack-clack of the teletype, and the flickering quotations of the tape.

  He was only concerned with his word to Jim Woodford, who was now in the jungles of Yucatan, with his fortune in Bentley’s hands.

  “I’ll watch ’em for you, Jim,” he had said, as he grasped Woodford’s hand, “till hell’s no bigger than a cook-stove!”

  And Woodford, knowing that John Bentley’s word was his god, went on to the interior of Yucatan, far beyond any cable, or letter, or messenger.

  The mists were crowding in closely, and John Bentley’s word was becoming more tenuous than the shifting grayness. He knew that he could not keep it. And then, with one foot across the Border, that dying man whose dimmed eyes had seen only the failure of his one remaining purpose, grasped suddenly at a final hope. With an effort, he spoke, and put command into his voice.

  “Janet, get my briefcase out of the wreck. Show these men where I kept it.”

  He could still distinguish those men he had forbidden to move him. He knew now why he had ordered them to desist.

  Janet returned with the briefcase, and opened it.

  “Pick out an irrevocable power-of-attorney form,” he said, “and give me my pen.”

  The pen was broken, but enough ink clung to its point to enable him to sign his name, and have it witnessed.

  “Janet, this gives you absolute authority over every share of stock I hold. I can’t keep my promise to Woodford, but you’ll do it for me. We can’t fall down on Uncle Jim. So don’t fail me.”

  And before his daughter could answer, the mists closed in on the speculator. She saw that he had gone smiling into the grayness, knowing that his word would be kept.

  * * * *

  The weight of that trust bore down more heavily on Janet Bentley than the earth they had dropped into John Bentley’s grave.

  “Six feet of dirt is enough to keep any man in place,” he had once said. “My old man couldn’t afford a tomb, and I won’t!”

  Janet Bentley, with the appalling burden of that irrevocable power of attorney, wondered if any six feet of earth could bear down a man who had for so many years carried the load symbolized by that sheet of paper. She tried to explain it to her mother, who, though thirty years married to a speculator, still thought that preferred stocks were so called because of an unusual demand for them.

  “Uncle Jim,” she said, “has a strongbox full of securities up in Hartford. And the night he stopped to tell us good-bye, he developed a fidgety streak about leaving them to the mercy of whatever the market might do.”

  She paused, knowing the futility of explaining a “put” to her mother.

  “So Daddy agreed to buy all of his holdings at a price lower than the recent quotations, but high enough so Uncle Jim wouldn’t lose if the market broke badly. That way, he could go to Yucatan and not worry about returning and finding himself wiped out.”

  “But that was terribly foolish,” protested Mrs. Bentley, “offering to buy them all at a certain figure, no matter how low they might drop. And I certainly don’t think that you should worry about such a ridiculous promise. We’ve lost your father, and Jim Woodford will only lose some money.”

  “That’s not the point,” explained Janet, patiently. “Daddy wasn’t taking any risk. He watched the tape every hour of the day. The moment things looked risky, all he would have to do would be to borrow some shares just like Uncle Jim had in his deposit box, and sell them before they dropped to the agreed price. And when Uncle Jim returned from Yucatan, he’d turn over his shares to the brokers that loaned shares to Daddy, and receive the price of those that were borrowed and sold. It’s all very simple, isn’t it, Mother?”

  Mrs. Bentley admitted that it was quite clear. This paved the way for another objection.

  “Why don’t you turn that agreement over to Bennett & Keene? They could handle it.”

  “There is no record,” replied Janet. “It was just a gentleman’s agreement. And anyway, Uncle Jim may be gone so long that no house in town would sell a ‘put’ for that length of time. So I’m going to keep his word for him.”

  Mrs. Bentley sighed wearily. Gentlemen’s agreements were such idiotic things.

  “Mother, I’ve got to!” reiterated Janet. “Or he’d come out of his grave and do it himself. That’s why his word was good when he was alive. That’s why his friends staked him, last fall, so he could get a fresh start. If it came to the worst, I’d sell every share he’s got, to protect his word to Uncle Jim.”

  “Janet, you’ll do nothing that silly!” exclaimed Mrs. Bentley. “We’d have nothing left but that little annuity, we can barely live on.”

  “Try and stop me. I’ve got an irrevocable power of attorney. I can sell those stocks and buy bird seed if I want to!”

  And Mrs. Bentley knew that she was beaten.

  * * * *

  Janet consulted Charles Bennett, of Bennett & Keene.

  “Miss Bentley,” he assured her, “you have no cause for fear. We are rapidly recovering from the disturbance of 1929. Right now, they are betting that Steel will touch 200 within the next few days, and it’s at 196 now. And if you sold short to protect Mr. Woodford’s interests, you would run the grave risk of not being able to cover if the market advanced sharply. Very hazardous, Miss Bentley, very hazardous.”

  “Will you sell me a ‘put’ for Mr. Woodford’s holdings, good until his return?” she demanded.

  Mr. Bennett promptly declined, saying that Mr. Woodford might never return.

  Janet did not know that even as Mr. Bennett spoke, there were underground mutterings in the Street. No one dared mention by name the giant who was rigging the market, so that he could dispose at a substantial profit of the many hundreds of thousands of shares he had bought during November to check the panic. One house did state in a bulletin that the “Old Man Across the Street” was doing a masterly job of making the market boom. That house suddenly collapsed. The others promptly issued optimistic reports, and recommended Steel at 195, and Telephone at 250. They dared not voice their suspicions about the sudden, unwarranted stock boom early in 1930.

  Janet attributed her uneasiness to intuition, to the memory of John Bentley’s last words, and the calm smile that had followed his iron-faced, grim peering through the mists.

  “He’s depending on me. Oh, Lord, if I could just look far enough ahead! They don’t know, and those that do, won’t tell the truth.”

  All that Janet could do was watch, and think. Think painfully, despairingly. John Bentley’s word must be protected. That intangible gentleman’s agreement had become a crushing burden. She went to her father’s office, of which she had the keys. It had not yet been subleased. She would sit in its emptiness, and make her decision.

  “If I failed he’d turn over in his grave. I can’t fail him. But I don’t know what it’s all about. They got an old veteran like him last fall. What can I do, now? Just sit and wait, and sell everything at the first sign of trouble, if it doesn’t come so fast that I won’t have time to sell.”

  Those terrible days of November, 1929, were still fresh in her mind. She knew with what deadly swiftness a market could drop.

  As she sat there, Janet became acutely conscious of her father’s personality in that office overlooking the street which had been his battlefield. At that battered desk he had fought his way up from nowhere. He had wrested a fortune from the tape that the ticker in the corner spewed forth by the yard. He had lost it, only to regain, and lose once more. And then, as he sought to recoup, Death had called him for more margin. And through all the vicissitudes of his career, he had clung to that dingy office, instead of
moving to more ornate quarters during his prosperous days. The grimy plaster and the scarred woodwork had almost become a part of that old gray wolf who held fast to his word, until, as he had often said, “Hell was no bigger than a cook-stove.”

  Had his car been as far from the railroad crossing as his mind was that fatal morning, he would be at his desk, and in the chair that Janet occupied, keeping his pledge to Woodford, who was far in the jungles of Yucatan, unworried, and secure in the promise of John Bentley, who had never failed a friend.

  The gray mists of that morning were surrounding Janet, now, as they had enveloped her father. The weariness of her mind had summoned them as a barrier to shut out the tumult from the outside. She could think better, sitting in his chair, and at his desk. There was a spot worn bare of varnish, where his elbow and forearm had rested; and there, neglected cigars had burned into the wood. That was the telephone into whose transmitter he had issued orders that had shaken the Street, and whipped the idly lagging tape to a frenzied gallop. And at that telephone he had sought to stem the debacle of November just past. If he were now at that desk, he would know how to protect Uncle Jim; he would know whether the Old Man Across the Street was rigging a rotten market to make it display unnatural optimism. He would know the meaning behind those symbols the ticker was printing on the narrow, white tape that was stronger than massive bars of steel, and more devastating than marauding armies. She could only read that so many shares of Steel had changed hands at such and such a price; but he would know why, and what to do next, what order to snap into the transmitter.

  A premonition of peril was shaking Janet as she stared at the ticker. Despite Mr. Bennett’s suave optimism, a vague dread was gnawing at her. She was trembling, and knew not why, save that something was urging her to action. She sought to control herself, but in vain. John Bentley’s presence now permeated the unaccountable wisps and veils of mist that swirled about the room, twining into columns like small waterspouts, and marching toward the ticker. Uncle Jim was in danger. If John Bentley were at the desk, he would know what to do.

  Janet assured herself that the grayish mists were but the protests of nerves and eyes strained by worry. But she was no longer certain that John Bentley was not there.

  She picked up the tape, blinked incredulously, regarded it again, then froze in horror. Steel couldn’t be that low! She looked for the next quotation. It was lower. And the transactions were heavier. The tape was moving faster, now. That narrow strip of paper had the dreadful vitality of a charged wire. She was as sensitive to its menace as though she had been on the floor of the Exchange. Uncle Jim was ruined beyond redemption, wiped out as she sat there, in her father’s chair. No wonder she had felt his presence. She had failed him, but he had not returned soon enough. She could not keep John Bentley’s agreement to take Jim Woodford’s stock at the agreed figure. It was too late. It was incredible that the market could have broken during the few minutes between Bennett & Keene’s and her father’s office, but the tape told the story. In despair she watched the prices drop, drop, drop, recover a fraction, and drop again.

  Then she lifted the receiver from its hook, and spoke as John Bentley would have spoken: except that he would have been in time.

  “Sell every last share. At the market. Immediately!” she directed, as she was connected with Bennett & Keene’s office. “I’m not mistaken, and I mean what I say!”

  Then she sank back in her father’s chair, limp and feint from the ruin that had emerged from the ticker. The mists were thinning, and the grayness was no longer blocking the sunlight that filtered cheerlessly through the window-panes.

  She left the office, and called on Bennett & Keene.

  * * * *

  Mr. Bennett handed her the memorandum of the orders he had executed. She glanced at the first slip, gasped, looked at the ground glass screen on which the marching figures, greatly enlarged, were projected from the narrow tape.

  “Why, what’s the matter, Miss Bentley?” asked Mr. Bennett, solicitously, as he supported her by the arm.

  She recovered from the dizziness that had for a moment clouded her senses. She looked again, and saw that Steel was at 197. The market had not crashed!

  “Nothing, Mr. Bennett, thank you,” she replied. “I’ve just been terribly worried lately.” She knew better than to tell him who had urged her to look at that tape in her father’s office. She scarcely dared tell herself the truth until after the clerk had written the check, and it had been signed, and countersigned.

  Then Janet returned to her father’s office, clipped the tangled mass of tape that lay at the foot of the ticker pedestal, and carefully put it into her handbag.

  The market broke the following week. Janet called at Bennett & Keene’s office regarding a minor detail of the transaction that had liquidated her father’s holdings in time to protect his pledge to Woodford.

  “Miss Bentley,” demanded the broker, “what on earth made you sell that day? At the very top! Who tipped you off?”

  She opened her handbag, and gave him a yard of tape, with its printed quotations.

  “This,” she said. “I read the tape in my father’s office. Fortunately, the phone had not yet been disconnected. So I gave you a selling order, right away, before I could change my mind.”

  Mr. Bennett stared at the tape. Then he stared at her.

  “Even now, they’re not that low. Not yet,” he contrived to say, as he frowned, perplexedly. “Where did you get this tape?”

  She repeated her statement.

  “Miss Bentley,” he resumed, after another long, intent stare, “the ticker in your father’s office was cut off the service cable the day after his death. It couldn’t have been working and even in November, stocks weren’t as low as it shows them. Haven’t been for years! And this is new tape.”

  “Oh, well, let’s not argue about it, Mr. Bennett,” she replied, knowing the futility of discussion. “Just call it feminine intuition.”

  Whereupon Mr. Bennett attended to the business which had brought Janet to his office. Upon its completion, a few minutes later, she entered the customer’s room again, where she paused to glance once more at the ground glass screen. Then she took the yard of tape from her handbag.

  “Mr. Bennett,” she said, “they’ve been dropping during our absence. Very rapidly. Now they are as low as they are shown on this tape which puzzles you so much. Look!”

  He looked at the piece of tape, then glanced up, and saw moving across the ground glass those very figures, in the same sequence that was printed on the ribbon Janet had handed him. He stared blankly, and shook his head as if to deny his eyes. But as he recovered his speech, a frantic customer accosted him, and begged assurance that the bottom had been reached.

  “Funny thing,” said Janet to herself, as she left the customer’s room. “I did notice that the ticker was dead when I stepped into Daddy’s office. But somehow, I wasn’t a bit surprised when it began printing quotations on the tape.”

  Janet did not pause for further words with Mr. Bennett. She knew that no sane broker could believe that a gray mist had set a dead ticker into motion so that John Bentley could keep his word.

  DESERT MAGIC

  Originally published in Spicy Mystery Stories, February 1936.

  Cairo was a somber, murmuring silence to which Davis Loring’s narghileh contributed its throaty, somnolent bubbling

  He wore a turban and striped kaftan. Disguised as a Moslem, he was studying at the ancient University of al Azhar. Loring’s life depended on the success of his pose as a native scholar.

  There was a gentle tapping at his door. Before he could answer, it swung softly inward. A girl stood at the threshold.

  She was veiled, and was shrouded from head to foot in a flowing, shapeless black silk habara—the street cloak of a native woman. Then as she slipped out of the somber garment he recognized Paquita Moreno, who, on the trip
from New York several months ago, had displayed everything but her wisdom teeth and still remained a distressingly nice girl.

  And she was so lovely, you could—or maybe—couldn’t forgive her!

  “Oh—” Her dark eyes widened in dismay as she regarded him. The beard was a new adornment. “Dave—good Lord, I thought you were a native!”

  “I’d better be,” he grimly countered. “That’s why I gave you my Cairo address, instead of risking a look-in at your hotel. And if my pious Moslem professors got wise to my entertaining anyone wearing clothes like you’ve got under that habara—pay day!”

  He caught her hand and turned toward a cushioned alcove. The unaccustomed effort to seat herself cross-legged gave Loring a view of chiffon caressed knees that kept him dizzily counting dimples until, always the scholar, he wondered if he could decipher the monogram on her garter clasp.

  He couldn’t simply because his glance, though baffled by a tantalizing haze of lace somewhat further up, told him that Paquita’s more sheltered areas—sheltered, except for that futile night on the boat!—were of the same warm, olive-tinted flesh as her throat.

  But as she leaned forward to urge her skirt into place, he completed his notes on Paquita’s coloring.

  The curves of her bosom were a blend of roses and old ivory and a trace of amber sun-kissed to a mellowing tan; but they weren’t the least like mosque domes or lotus buds or magnolia blossoms. Who the hell would be interested in floral curves and architectural whatnots when a moderate reach would yield either a slap in the face or a handful of what rounded out the last things Paquita took off of an evening?

  She did not break away from his encircling arm, but she gasped, jerked clear of his lips, and said something decisive about not getting runners in her hosiery—which last hinted that Loring was ambidextrous.