The Fourth King

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Yes, her father had died in the latter part of August.

  “I am sorry to tell you,” she said, accepting Eaves’s usual story without a question, “that father was found dying on the night of August 21, in Tower Square, on the North Side, and never recovered consciousness. It was apoplexy. He owned property on Tower Court and must have gone over there on foot after the close of business to look over it. He never spoke after they found him that bleak, rainy night, and died in the Nurse Cavell Memorial Hospital, near where he was found.”

  “Miss Rothblume,” said Eaves, “I was a friend of your father — knew him well. I was out of town four days at the time of this, and being in a phase of the brokerage business where we do not meet and gossip much, never even knew of his death. May — may I ask you if you feel quite sure it was apoplexy? Could it have been foul play, perhaps? Were any threatening letters sent him prior to his death, so far as you know?”

  “No,” the Jewish girl replied. “Only a deck of cards with some card missing — the king — I believe, and some rubber-stamped threats about closing up his business within a certain time — a week, I believe. He told us of the threats after he had thrown them away. Purely a coincidence, though. The police ambulance physician pronounced it apoplexy.”

  Eaves nodded sympathetically to the transmitter. He detected the faintest trace of tears in the girl’s voice, and diplomatically said good-bye and hung up.

  His gaze at the deck of cards and the cryptic rubber-stamped letter was more interested and worried now. His forehead was just a trifle moist, and he felt a little weak.

  One thing was certain. Each of three men — three of the thirteen “crooked kings” — had received a concise and definite warning, accompanied by a symbol of his royal status. Each had evidently failed to heed his warning or to pay any attention to it. Each had apparently failed to “check up the deck,” or, if he had done so, had not considered the facts he had found as corroborative of the genuineness of the letter. And each of the three had died — a different death each time, yet a death that was far from pleasant to contemplate. What was the cause of Paddon’s death, who had received a deck of cards in the mails in the early part of August with a black border painted in ink around one of the kings, and a threat that he, too, would be “draped in crêpe” unless he closed up his business? Was it heart disease? Was it an accident? Or was he slain, placed in his car that rainy day, full speed put on the machine, and car and driver sent headlong toward the open draw into the river? He wondered. And what was the truth concerning Rothblume, who had received a deck with one king missing, and had died in the latter part of August of apoplexy? Was it apoplexy? And of Johnstone Lee — recipient in the earlier part of September of a deck with two kings missing — who had gone out by “ptomaine poisoning?” Who really knew whether it was ptomaine poisoning, after all — if the man had never spoken after he had been found in his vestibule.

  One thing, however, loomed up in J. Hamilton Eaves’s mind.

  He — not of the thirteen kings of the Riswold’s Magazine exposé — had for some inexplicable reason been delegated to be “the fourth king.”

  He had received the fourth of four warnings, three of which had been followed by death.

  Who was the sender, who signed himself by the bombastic and melodramatic title “Star of the Night”?

  And how would he strike?

  And when?

  For, be it known, J. Hamilton Eaves was now working on the neatest trio of stock-selling propositions in his career — not the least lucrative of which was the Shanks Dictatograph. And he had no intention whatsoever of quitting his business at this, of all stages. But he wished, nevertheless, as he passed a hand over his warm brow, that he was in sunny climes, far, far away!

  CHAPTER II

  COLD FACTS

  JASON FOLWELL, recently graduated from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England, and at present, after less than a year in America, mechanical expert for J. Hamilton Eaves, American promoter of industrial devices, had noticed from his drawing-board in the office of the National Industrial Securities Company at Chicago the two heavy-jawed, thick-soled men, whose clothes marked them for detectives, stride into the private office of his employer. And he had seen by the silhouettes on the frosted glass window of the door that a long interview of at least an hour was taking place, with here and there sounds of voices and the stepping back and forth of various individuals across the room from the window to the big garish two-door vault which J. Hamilton Eaves had recently installed to hold the mechanical devices, options, stock certificates and other assets of the business.

  He glanced up from his work with interest as the two heavy-jawed men at last bowed their way out with a sidewise glance at him which he could not then interpret, and passed from the office and out into the hallway again. Sixty seconds later the plump form of J. Hamilton Eaves beckoned to him from the doorway of the private office.

  “Jason, will you step in here for a few minutes? Want to have a talk with you.”

  Folwell arose from his board, brushing back from his forehead the tangled mass of brown hair which persisted in straying over his vision. He straightened his athletic form, pulled the wrinkles out of his coat, and adjusted his tie. Then he stepped into the adjoining room, past the bright Shanks Dictatograph which stood near the centre of the space, and stood with his hand on the back of a mahogany chair close to Eaves’s desk.

  The older man, whose face usually radiated the benign-shining satisfaction of the angel that bestows on mankind the largess of Heaven itself, was serious and a bit hard as he closed the door. He motioned curtly to a seat, and plumped into a swivel-chair where he stared at Folwell with a peculiar glint in his close-set, piglike eyes.

  “Jason,” he began, “how long have we been associated here now?”

  “Five months minus three days,” said Folwell. He wondered if by any possibility he were going to receive a raise — but he hoped not, as he had quite determined to sever all connections with J. Hamilton Eaves, wolf to the unwary.

  “Um.” Eaves nodded. He stared at Folwell a little harder.

  “Jason, do you know who those two men were? The ones that were just in here?”

  “I would hazard that they were what are called ‘plainclothes men’ from the City Detective Bureau,” said Folwell politely. “One doesn’t need to live long in a city with a criminal record like Chicago to know the type, I think. Straight jaws, blue eyes, black eye-lashed, heavy brogans. Or, is the guess of the company’s mechanical expert far and away?”

  “They were police officers,” announced Eaves curtly. “And they are returning here in an hour.”

  All this was quite cryptic to Folwell, who, however, politely said nothing until J. Hamilton Eaves felt able to elucidate further.

  “Jason,” said that gentleman finally, “when I first set my eyes on you, I took a liking to you, if for no other reason than that coming over here to a country where they spoke a different language than back in your England, you had buckled down and were conscientiously learning to speak our lingo, complete to the last idiom and bit of slang, just as we talk it. That struck me as being a real accomplishment for a blooming Britisher, and more so, pointed to an individual who was going to get ahead by every weapon he had. All right for that. What’s more important, I felt you were a man of profound honour and one that could be trusted with almost any amount of money. And still furthermore, on top of that, your references from England were A. No. I.” He paused. “And when I first set my eyes upon your co-employee, Miss Reardon — ”

  “Miss Reardon? Avery?” ejaculated Folwell, sitting up suddenly in his chair.

  “Yes, Miss Reardon — Avery Reardon,” went on Eaves. “I put her down likewise for a girl whose trustworthiness would be beyond impeachment. I confess that there has been about her some hidden thing — something that I can’t quite get at the bottom of — dammit, there certainly is some secret mystery about that girl — but it may not concern t
his company at all. At any rate, when I had this new vault with the double combination doors installed, I felt that it was quite every bit of all right — to use an expression you used to use when we first came together — to entrust the combination of both the outer door and the inner door to you two only; so that you could get out the mechanical devices and drawings when you needed them and likewise put them away again when you were done with ‘em: to her so that she could get in and out for information which was called for, and stock certificates which must be mailed out, data which must be gotten, and so forth.” He paused. “At any rate, one of you has done me to the extent of some $5,100, and we’re going to find out within the next four hours to-day which one of you has pulled the stunt. Jason, I think one minute it’s you — and then I’m certain the girl did it. And as for your own self, I’m going so far as to tell you exactly why you’re in bad with me.” He paused and fumbled in his desk, withdrawing a folded letter.

  As for Folwell, he heard the older man’s speech through in amazement. The statement of being ‘'done” out of $5,100 was quite unintelligible to him. He wondered dimly for a few seconds if he had actually heard aright, particularly in the connection of the accusation with himself, but he held his lips together to see what the next exhibit was to be.

  “Jason, this is your letter and handwriting, I believe?” Eaves handed him the letter.

  Folwell looked at it. Of course it was his own, for he had written the words thereon. He ran his eyes over them again. They were unchanged. They constituted his application, submitted in writing by Eaves’s own request, to Eaves himself for a loan upon Folwell’s rights in the Folwell-Schierling Rotogravure Disk. They ran:

  “Dear Sir:

  “I submit for your consideration the Folwell-Schierling Rotogravure Disk, invented, patented and duly recorded in the patent offices of the United States and Great Britain as being invented by Jason T. Folwell of 17, Percy Circus, London, and Franz L. Schierling of the American Rotogravure Company, Chicago. The rights in this disk are owned half and half by the patentees. Various offers have been made for the complete rights in this invention. Schierling, needing money, has given an option to the undersigned, agreeing to sell his fifty per cent, interest for five thousand dollars, which in the opinion of the undersigned is worth more than that and worth ultimately as much as five times that amount. The undersigned offers a first lien upon the Folwell-Schierling Rotogravure Disk for the sum of five thousand dollars, payable in one year, said sum to be paid directly to Franz L. Schierling to guarantee complete title to invention in the name of Jason T. Folwell.

  “(Signed) JASON T. FOLWELL.”

  “This is my letter,” acknowledged Folwell.

  “You needed five thousand dollars when it was written, didn’t you, Jason, to get control of something that would be worth in time a lot more, as you thought?”

  “Not as I thought, but as I practically knew,” replied Folwell. He paused. “Now I say, Mr. Eaves, you’ve just made an accusation that sounds like an accusation of theft, and you haven’t given even an explanation as to what it’s about. What do you mean?”

  “Simply this,” snapped Eaves. “I’ll come to the point.” He extended his index finger toward the big steel safe, facing the bright light from the windows, which had been installed for perhaps two months now. “Jason, there were three people who knew both the outer and inner combinations of that safe. They were you and I and Avery Reardon. And not another soul but we three knew it, unless you or she were faithless to my decency in giving you both the combinations for efficiency’s sake. All right. Something over seven weeks ago — on or about August 15, to be exact — I deposited in the small upper drawer of the inner compartment — the one marked ‘Eaves — private' — a bundle of listed securities — certificates, in fact — twenty-one hundred dollars in U.S. Steel stock, fourteen hundred dollars in City of Denver four per cents., and sixteen hundred dollars more of Oregon Falls Light and Power Company seven per cents. They were in a big envelope made out of a discarded sheet of thick drawing paper — made it myself with a scissors and pastepot. The envelope, like the drawer it was in, was marked private. To-day — this morning — I went to have a look at ‘em, and — lo and behold! — the drawer was empty, the envelope was gone.” He paused for breath. “Jason, you needed five thousand for what you thought was a golden opportunity. I had to turn you down, for your invention wasn’t and isn’t the glittering kind that I can promote successfully with benefit to myself. Five thousand one hundred dollars in bonds and stocks are gone. Well — what have you got to say?”

  Folwell drew his lips together into a thin, hard line. This was the first time in his life he had ever been accused of theft, and the experience was not altogether pleasant.

  “Well — ” he began. He stopped. “Let me ask then, Mr. Eaves, how does either Miss Reardon or myself know that you didn’t take the bonds yourself for some reason and are trying to throw the blame on one of us?”

  “Yes, why?” retorted J. Hamilton Eaves bitterly. “Why? Why? Because in with them was our option on the promotion rights of the Judson Tolliver Two-Colour Fountain Pen. And it expires to-morrow! The old gentleman has been trying in a dozen ways to get me to relinquish it since he has got hold of some series of newspaper articles on invention promotion — stuff à la Riswold’s Magazine, I guess. With the control of that two-colour pen through that option, I expected to clean up nothing less than a good fifty thousand dollars by promoting it. Well, the option’s gone. Old Judson Tolliver gets back his pen rights — and I lose what promises to be the neatest proposition yet, barring perhaps the Shanks Dictatograph. I suppose whoever pillaged the safe sold back the option paper to Judson Tolliver for a few hundred cash.” His voice was bitter.

  “I didn’t steal your bonds nor your option nor your envelope nor anything in your safe,” declared Folwell angrily.

  “I suppose,” said Eaves, a trace of sarcasm in his voice, “that you didn’t.” He leaned back in his chair, his countenance a peculiar admixture of bitterness and, strangely, harassment.

  “Jason, if it had been you and you had been willing to come clean, and ‘fess up’ ” — he tapped a paper on his desk — “I had intended giving you not only two weeks in which to square yourself, but to give you the golden opportunity of your life to walk out of the whole nasty mess and no more words said on either side. But instead I’ve got to go to all the trouble now to have both yourself and Avery Reardon arrested, taken to detective headquarters, and grilled good and proper. For the police are equally as strong to suspect her as you.”

  “Miss Reardon — detective headquarters — arrest!” stammered Folwell. He uncrossed his legs in his perturbation. “Why, I say, Mr. Eaves, that’s — that’s an injustice. That’s a crime. That’s — ”

  “Oh, so you know, do you, that she’s innocent?” said Eaves.

  Folwell sighed. He knew why he was sighing — and he alone knew why. He, of all persons, was cognizant of the strange complications that stood in this case — and Eaves had not the least glimmering of the facts.

  “You say if I had been willing to confess, you would have given me two weeks to square myself as well as an opportunity to walk out of the affair? What does that mean?”

  “It means,” said J. Hamilton Eaves, “that had you admitted the facts, and had I had a signed confession from you to protect me against your denying later your own admissions on the theft, I’d have given you the opportunity of getting back that paper and a receipt in full for the bonds, all for doing some private work for me. The whole thing would have been called quits. It would have been a fifty-one-hundred-dollar bargain, in other words. And the pay would have been just about three hundred and sixty dollars a day.”

  “Three hundred and sixty dollars a day!” ejaculated Folwell. “Three hundred and sixty dollars a day?” he repeated.

  “Yes — if you had come clean with me. But instead I’m up in the air, and you and the girl can fight it out over at headquarters. For all I
know, Folwell, maybe you’re both in collusion. The officers have orders to return in one hour unless I send word to them that the case is adjusted. Now, instead, I’ve got to send out, nab Miss Reardon before she leaves on her trip to Canada, and let them haggle it out with both of you. Confound you, Jason, if you’re the guilty one, why don’t you be sensible?”

  “Let me see the confession,” said that young man. Eaves handed it over. It was written in Eaves’s big flowing hand, with the purple ink of his fountain pen. It read simply:

  “The undersigned admits herewith the theft from the safe of J. Hamilton Eaves of one package of bonds and stocks amounting to $5,100, together with one option paper. This confession is given by me of my own accord and free will after a talk with J. Hamilton Eaves.

  “(Signed) ——— ”

  Folwell looked up. “What is the work you refer to?”

  “I’m not at liberty,” said the older man coolly, “to discuss it in any detail whatsoever unless we are certain that you’re going to undertake it.”

  “Is it honourable?”

  “Absolutely,” affirmed J. Hamilton Eaves.

  “Does it involve any stock selling?”

  “No.”

  “Is it difficult?”

  “No.”

  “Can I do it successfully?”

  “You can do it well enough for the purpose.”

  “Is — is it dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you reason that a signed confession from me will protect you in the matter of my leaving this city overnight?”

  Eaves laughed mirthlessly. “I haven’t forgotten the existence of that little brother of yours in the cripple school — the one you brought over with you from London. You’re not going to be a fugitive from justice and let the helpless boy, with no mother or father, sister or any other brother but yourself, be battered around from pillar to post in a strange country.”

  “You’re exceedingly right on that point,” retorted Folwell grimly. “I’m not.” He paused. “You offer that confession of a $5,100 theft back in return for certain work that I can do?”