“When you can spare a little time, Mr. Budkins,” he said, “I’ll be glad to talk things over.”
“I got time right now,” answered Budkins promptly; “that’s all I have got.” He grabbed two of the traveling bags and led the way up the hotel stairs.
A few minutes later, his forehead glistening with moisture, his eyes gleaming with the rebirth of dying hopes, he leaned forward in a chair, facing Mr. Clackworthy and The Early Bird, trying to convince them that he held the key to sudden and certain wealth.
“You see,” said Mr. Budkins, “I got the idee from a feller what was boardin’ down here last summer at my Aunt Mandy’s. He ran across that clay deposit just by accident. Said it was the best statuary clay he ever seen. Him not havin’ any capital, he let me in on it, so we organized a little company, and—”
“How much capitalization?” inquired Mr. Clackworthy.
“Oh, we ain’t incorporated yet,” replied Budkins. “Seems like De Vine—that’s my partner’s name—must have hit a snag or mebbe died or something for I ain’t heard from him in most a year. I had two or three nice, encouragin’ letters, an’ then he quit writin’ all of a sudden, but—”
“How far did you get with your promotion plans?” inquired the master confidence man.
“Not far, an’ somethin’ has got to be done quick, I took an option on Flint Whitecotton’s twenty acres, an’ it runs out on the first of the month. That’s next Friday. Only paid him a hundred dollars for it, but”—he colored in embarrassment—“the truth is, Mr. Clackworthy, I ain’t got any more money to pay for another option. You see, I let De Vine have four hundred dollars for his expenses, an’—”
“I gotcha,” interrupted The Early Bird. “You been nicked for four hundred iron men.”
Mr. Budkins looked puzzled for a moment and then flushed guiltily.
“I—I sort of begun to have that suspicion,” he admitted haltingly.
“It ain’t no suspicion; it’s a lead-pipe cinch,” said James. “Consider yourself an enrolled scholar in the School of Experience, an’ a fully initiated member of The Ancient Order of Trimmed Mutts. You been buncoed, bilked, fleeced, flimflammed an’ otherwise deprived of four hundred berries.”
“My dear James!” reproved Mr. Clackworthy sternly. He turned apologetically to Budkins. “Have you tried to interest—ah—local capital?” he inquired politely.
“There ain’t no local capital, except what Flint Whitecotton has got squeezed in them two graspin’ fists of his,” Budkins answered bitterly. “He ain’t got no vision; can’t see no further than a dollar can cast a shadow. I tried to get him interested, but he just laughed at me. I tell you, Mr. Clackworthy, it’s a gold mine. Just think—thirty-five dollars a ton just for clay that can be dug off the top of the ground with a shovel. Just think of it! Easier than minin’ coal, an’ coal sellin’ for about six dollars to the ton!”
Mr. Clackworthy could have reminded him that the consumption of sculptor’s clay would total very few tons a year, that it was but an empty daydream, This, in fact, he proceeded to do, as gently and as kindly as possible.
“While I am quite certain, Mr. Budkins, that your deposit of sculptor’s clay lacks financial possibilities, I feel almost certain that I can return you the money which you would otherwise lose in the venture, and perhaps some interest besides. I shall let you know this afternoon.”
Lemuel Budkins’ face mirrored both disappointment and relief; it is hard, sometimes, to surrender a daydream, but five hundred dollars is a great deal of money to a man who hasn’t any. In the case of the hotel clerk, the capital which had been swallowed up in his foolish, visionary scheme represented frugal economies.
When Budkins had departed, The Early Bird let his gaze wander from the cracked washbasin and pitcher on the rickety washstand in the corner of the room, to rest disgustedly on Mr. Clackworthy’s face.
“Say!” he exploded. “What’s the grand idear? Are we goin’ around the country weedin’ back some other guy’s graft, or are we out to grab a little kale on our own hook?”
Mr. Clackworthy looked thoughtful for a moment.
“James,” he said slowly, “during our association, have I ever taken money from a poor man? Have I ever trimmed an honest man? In my own defense, I answer, ‘No!’ Every man who has contributed to us, has fallen victim to his own avarice.
“The idea, my dear James, is to build a neat little trap for the local Midas known as Flint Whitecotton; a man, if my surmise is correct, as hard as his front name. The idea, my indignant partner in crime, is to convince Banker Whitecotton that he had a grievous financial mistake in optioning that twenty-acre tract of his on the edge of town.”
“An’ sell the option back to him, huh? What’s the lay? You ain’t flirtin’ with the idear that you’re gonna make him fall for no sculptor’s clay racket?”
“Hardly!” Mr. Clackworthy laughed. “Hardly that, I fear that our hard-headed, tight-fisted banker is not so credulous as Mr. Burkin. Bestir yourself, and we shall have a look at that twenty acres of clay land.”
The tract was but three miles from town, and thirty minutes later the two pursuers of easy money had made the trip in a hired flivver and were looking over the property. It was, indeed, as worthless-looking a piece of real estate as one might expect to find in the entire State of Pennsylvania. Half of it was a tangle of starved underbrush, and the remaining part of it was devoid of any growing thing, for the whitish clay was lacking in fertility. In the hot sun it was baked brick hard.
For a quarter of an hour Mr. Clackworthy devoted himself to a survey of the property, his brows knitted in thought. He noticed particularly that the State highway ran alongside the twenty acres. Although he nodded, The Early Bird’s wrath grew apace.
“And now,” said the master confidence man, “we will go back and proceed to take Mr. Whitecotton’s measure.”
“His name may be cotton,” grunted James, “but I’ll lay a li’le bet that you ain’t gonna pick him.”
“That’s a sporting proposition. Any amount you like.”
“A hundred seeds, boss.” He cast a last disgusted glance at the desolate twenty acres and shook his head. It didn’t seem humanly possible that any sane man would give up good money for it; he thought of the mysterious news item which had inspired the idea—and wondered with a curiosity which burned almost to fever heat.
III.
The building which housed the Alschoola State Bank gave no outward appearance of opulence, and neither did Mr. Flint Whitecotton, the bank’s president. He wore a suit even more shabby than was the building; one judged his favorite axiom to be “A penny saved is a penny earned.” The suit was frayed, threadbare, and darned in several places. The cuffs of his shirt wore aged whiskers; his shoes were unshined, as if he begrudged the cost of the polish necessary to give them a gloss; even the smoothness of his head was an item of economy. It did away with the necessity of barber bills.
Flint Whitecotton had a leathery skin, drawn drum tight over his bones. His eyes held a cold, freezing quality, and, as the bank door opened that afternoon, he frowned in black disfavor at the sinful extravagance as represented by Mr. Amos Clackworthy’s perfect harmony of attire. Such sartorial prodigality, in the opinion of Mr. Whitecotton, was downright criminal.
Wasting no time in the little pleasantries generally attending a formal introduction, Mr. Clackworthy opened his wallet and put in front of the banker five bills, each of one thousand dollars’ denomination. Mr. Whitecotton’s eyes bulged.
“I wish to open an account,” said the master confidence man crisply. “My name is Clackworthy, my home Chicago. If you desire business references—” He knew there would not be a call for them, although he could readily have supplied them; a five-thousand-dollar cash deposit speaks for itself. Worshipfully, the banker’s fingers went out and began to stroke the beloved thousand-dollar bills. He gave the new depositor a look of baffled curiosity.
“Humph!” he grunted. His voice was l
ike his face—harsh and unpleasant. “May I ask if you contemplate—ah—going into business here?”
“You might call it that.”
“What line?”
“I propose to develop a resource that has been locally overlooked.” Mr. Clackworthy smiled as he spoke. “If you will kindly give me credit for the five thousand, and a check book, I will write to your order a check for two thousand dollars.”
“Huh? Check—two thousand—to my order?” gasped Mr. Whitecotton. He again stared at the new customer, this time as if searching for some outward signs of insanity.
“Precisely. You see, I have purchased from Lemuel Bodkins his option on that twenty acres of clay land east of town, and I wish to exercise the option. The check, if you please. You’ll pardon me if I seem rather abrupt, but there are so many things I want to attend to—lumber for the buildings, some telegrams, and that sort of thing. Quite a lot of detail to getting a new enterprise started, you know.”
As the banker mechanically made a notation in a pass book, an ill-concealed sneer twisted his thin lips.
“You are buying that clay land?” he demanded incredulously.
“Quite so.” Already Mr. Clackworthy had uncapped his fountain pen and was filling in a check. “Just give me a receipt for it, and you can make the deed out later; tomorrow will do.”
“What are you going to do with it?” demanded the banker bluntly.
“Extract a certain chemical property valuable to science,” replied the confidence man glibly; and then, with a laugh: “Oh, I assure you that it has nothing to do with sculptor’s clay, Mr. Whitecotton. You would hardly expect me to be wasting my time with an insignificant scheme like Budkins’. The poor chap has had his little dream and, fortunately, gets out with a whole skin and a little to spare. I gave him seven hundred dollars for his option.”
“What?” The banker’s tone rose to a shrill note for two reasons. One was because it seemed such an unnecessary waste of money—seven hundred dollars tossed away to a visionary young fool like Lem Budkins, when a hundred would have done quite as well; the other was that the option would have expired within another week. This extravagantly dressed stranger evidently wanted the twenty acres badly, and how Flint Whitecotton would have made him pay!
“Sure,” said Mr. Clackworthy. “I felt sorry for the chap.” The banker shivered; such costly pity was beyond his ken. Immediately he formed a very low regard for Mr. Clackworthy’s ability as a business man.
IV.
Within the succeeding days, Alschoola was shown some speed. A neat but inexpensive shack went up on the Whitecotton twenty acres, almost overnight. Mr. Clackworthy paid spot cash for the lumber and the carpenter hire. The town, of course, was abuzz with speculation and guesses; but no one except Mr. Clackworthy knew, and he didn’t tell. Even The Early Bird was not, as he would say, “in on the know,” a fact which galled him bitterly.
With the completing of the shack and a high board fence, total cost eight hundred dollars, the two mysterious strangers began to keep regular hours, admitting no one. The town wondered what they did there, and would have been further mystified to have witnessed the strange capitalist calmly stretched out in a steamer chair, reading a volume of Freud’s Psychoanalysis, while The Early Bird paced the floor like a caged lion, smoking countless cigarettes and muttering angrily.
It was midafternoon and James gave way to his daily explosion.
“I gotta have a look-in!” he stormed. “You gotta tell me what the lay is.”
Mr. Clackworthy looked up lazily.
“We are going to sell Mr. Whitecotton’s worthless farm back to him—at a handsome profit,” he answered innocently. “I thought you knew that.”
“But how are you gonna hook him?” demanded The Early Bird. “What’s the bait we’re usin’?”
“Gold,” answered Mr. Clackworthy solemnly, “a pot of gold. Didn’t you read that item on the third page of—”
“I didn’t see nothin’ from no Pennsylvania towns except—”
“As it happens,” interrupted Mr. Clackworthy with a chuckle, “it wasn’t a news item from any Pennsylvania town, but an Associated Press dispatch from Washington, D. C., relating to a certain Congressional inquiry which is now in progress and occupying generous amounts of space almost daily. Question me no further, James; this is a little guessing contest of mine. Try your luck at it.”
“You know I ain’t got a chance.”
“Very well, I’ll add a bit more,” said Mr. Clackworthy, “Our mutual friend and often able assistant, George Bascom, will arrive in Alschoola day after tomorrow. He will remain entire stranger to both of us. We’ve never seen him before; we don’t know him from Adam’s off-ox.
“George will appear in Alschoola garbed in tatters which will make a Russian refugee look like Beau Brummel. He is empty of pocket and desperate of mind; he appeals to Banker Whitecotton. Mr. Whitecotton is skeptical and at the same time credulous. He doesn’t believe George’s story, but it has such a ring of truth, backed up by such a wealth of newspaper accounts, that he dare not ignore the chance of finding out if it is really true that his clay land is worth, not a mere two thousand dollars, but a hundred times that sum.”
“Two hundred thousand smackers?” gasped The Early Bird.
“Your multiplication is correct,” and Mr. Clackworthy nodded. “Mr. Whitecotton will be half convinced that his clay farm is worth two hundred thousand dollars in cash. And, on the evening of the day after tomorrow, George will proceed to convince him entirely—by a personally conducted visit to this very spot. Does it now become clear to you, my dear James?”
“Huh! Just as clear, boss, as a cloudy day on Lake Mich,” The Early Bird remarked, then groaned. “Come on an’ gimme a look-in.”
Mr. Clackworthy shook his head teasingly and glanced at his watch.
“Come to think about it,” he murmured, “I’ll have to be getting to the bank for a little talk with Mr. Whitecotton. He’s got a sight draft on me for thirty-two hundred dollars, and I’ve only eighteen hundred on deposit to meet it.”
“Whatcha talkin’ about? Ain’tcha got five thousand iron men in your kick?”
“True enough,” said the master confidence man, “but what is in my pocket is not for Mr. Whitecotton to know. He is to be only aware that of the five thousand dollars I deposited in his bank, just one thousand eight hundred dollars remain. And—I don’t want to meet the draft, anyhow. It’s one that Pop Blanchard sent here; just a little touch in realism.”
Half an hour later, Mr. Clackworthy, not looking so cheerful as he inwardly felt, was closeted with the local banker. Almost accusingly, Mr. Whitecotton produced the sight draft, a demand that one Mr. Amos Clackworthy pay over the sum of three thousand two hundred dollars forthwith.
“What about this?” he demanded.
“It’s for some machinery that I have ordered, and which won’t be shipped until it is paid,” said Mr. Clackworthy with apparent glumness. “I need that machinery, and I need it bad. I can’t get started until I have it; things haven’t gone as smoothly as I had anticipated, and I hope that you—”
“There is but one question before me,” cut in the banker icily. “Have you the money to meet this draft, or shall I sent it back unpaid?”
“You’ve got to help me out, Mr. Whitecotton,” pleaded Mr. Clackworthy, “I’ve got a balance of one thousand eight hundred dollars on deposit; I need one thousand four hundred dollars to meet the draft. I paid you two thousand dollars for the land; suppose you lend me one thousand four hundred dollars on a ten-day note, with the land as security.”
Banker Whitecotton laughed shrilly.
“Lend you one thousand four hundred dollars on that pile of clay?” he snorted. “It isn’t worth fifty dollars an acre. I wouldn’t give you thirty dollars an acre for it.”
“But I paid you a hundred an acre.”
“A bargain is a bargain,” retorted the banker. “No one asked you to buy that land from me. Don’t argue;
I won’t lend you a dollar on your hare-brained scheme.”
“That’s because you don’t understand the chemical possibilities,” persisted Mr. Clackworthy with just as much earnestness as if he had really expected to win the man over. He launched into a long, apparently technical, explanation of his contemplated process of extracting certain expensive chemicals from that peculiar whitish loam—all of which was Greek to the Alschoola banker.
“See here, Mr. Whitecotton,” he went on, “I stand on the brink of success or failure. There has been a slight hitch in my plans; the money I expect to get has not come into my hands yet. I hope—”
“So did half-witted Lem Budkins,” snapped Whitecotton.
“Take a look at this,” pleaded Mr. Clackworthy, producing a letter. It was ostensibly from a New York chemical company offering him twenty thousand dollars for his entire rights. The banker, of course, had no way of knowing that those letterheads had been printed on Mr. Clackworthy’s order and mailed by Pop Blanchard in New York; nevertheless, he tossed it aside with hardly a glance.
“Not interested,” he said harshly. “You haven’t the money to pay the draft; therefore, I send it back.”
“And force me to sell out for a paltry twenty thousand dollars!” Mr. Clackworthy exclaimed bitterly. Mr. Whitecotton winced; it hurt him to hear such a sum sneeringly referred to as “paltry.”
V.
The following afternoon, on the five o’clock train, George Bascom arrived in Alschoola. According to previous instructions, he was shabbily dressed, wore a dented derby hat, and had a four-day bristle of beard on his normally round and clean-shaven face.
He slouched almost furtively up the street away from the railroad station. The bank, of course, was closed, but he made inquiries at Hope’s Drug Store and had himself directed to the residence of Flint Whitecotton. The banker was on the front porch of his cottage—it, like everything else he owned, had been secured with the smallest possible outlay of cash—fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, which was an advertisement and had cost him nothing, waiting for supper. He glared at the approach of the ragged stranger.
The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories Page 23
