What happened was this: A little fire destroyed the Presbyterian Church and parsonage that was the delight and religious consolation of his wife. Immediate plans were made for their rebuilding, but the heavy part of this financial burden would fall on the Missionary Society, of which Mrs. Taine had been president for many years. She felt that she should lead in raising the money. She always gave ten percent of her husband’s income, but for the last few years this had not amounted to very much. So, after spending an afternoon with the building committee, she calmly told her husband that she would just have to give the Society one hundred thousand dollars or resign from the presidency. She even cried a little, and the little black female dog howled, and the daughters were sure that papa had done something horrible. Taine told his wife to go ahead with her plans, for, after all, one hundred thousand was ten percent of only one million and he could earn that in no time. Then he took an old envelope out of his pocket and a stub of a pencil and figured out that he was worth, including real estate and insurance, exactly eleven thousand dollars. The next day he wore a troubled look.
That look was deepened by the news that his wife had fainted while washing the dishes. She was nearing the thirty-ninth year, but on the three previous times that she had fainted, washing dishes, she had later on presented her adoring husband with a girl baby. Taine had three daughters and was not sure that he wanted any more. So, he rushed home (his wife was all right when he arrived) and insisted that she go at once and see a doctor.
That night all she could talk about was the New Doctor that she had called on. He was such a perfect gentleman, so kind and sympathetic, and had such a sympathetic understanding of her difficulties. There was no addition to the family in sight, but the Doctor had told her that for a few years she would be in a nervous state and should be careful not to be disappointed in any way. He had said that if her husband really loved her, he would see that every desire of her life was granted. Taine promised her that he would see to it that this was the case, and silently he promised himself that he would see this wonderful physician and give him a pointer or two as to how to handle women.
He called on the physician that evening, and gave, as his excuse, a troublesome cough. He found Dr. Williamson all that Mrs. Taine had pictured him and he found something else. As the Doctor took his history, and later on, as he percussed Taine’s chest, the detective saw a rather old Chinese ring on the left-hand little finger. He thought that he knew that ring. He was sure that he had seen it somewhere; in an odd way he was also sure that he had seen Dr. Williamson before. All that night he tried to connect the ring and the man and the past, and, when morning came, the solution came with it. That ring was one of the pieces of jewelry that he had carried with him into the Chinese hospital. He had given it to one of the Doctors, and, now, that he concentrated on it, he realized that the lady Doctor in China and Dr. Williamson were very much alike…
…only the one was a woman and the other was a man. They looked enough alike to be brother and sister.
Perhaps that was the solution.
Or perhaps it was not the same ring after all!
The next day one of the operators started to joke with him in the office.
“Nothing singular about all your children being girls, Taine. You were just a little ahead of the fashion. Did you see the report from the National Department of Vital Statistics? Last year there were three times as many girls as boys born in the United States. They are not shouting about it, but they are doing all they can to find the reason. If that keeps up for a few years, this will be a sure-enough female country.
“Well,” replied Taine. “There must be some reason for it. Everything has to have a reason. Now, we had these three girls because my wife is partial to girls, and I guess they are easier to raise than boys are. Of course, three girls to one boy is all wrong. If that keeps on—well, I guess I will go out and find some more opium!”
And that very evening Taine read in the papers about another raid on Wall Street. It seems that Johnson had been away from the Stock Exchange for a few days and his enemies had taken advantage of his absence. Taine read that item out loud to his wife, and even when he was reading it, one of the daughters answered the doorbell and in walked Johnson of New York. He introduced himself, he shook hands with the detective and with Mrs. Taine and with the Misses Taine. He acted like a god, condescending to visit a human habitation, and determined to make the humans like him.
“Have a cigar, Mr. Taine? I presume your wife will excuse us if we smoke?”
“Thanks, but I do not smoke,” the detective replied. “Long ago I found that the nicotine was bad for the delicate enamel of the teeth, and once that is destroyed, the teeth soon follow. Now, you go ahead and smoke all you want to, because Mrs. Taine has no objections to it. Girls, you had better go to the nursery and study your lessons. Mr. Johnson may have something to say to us privately.”
“I want to talk to you privately, Mr. Taine, if your wife will excuse you?”
“Oh! You can talk in front of my wife. Especially if it is professional business. She is really very wonderful in offering suggestions. In fact, she is my chief inspiration. More than once I have left home and gone to the far off places of the earth for more than a year at a time, and she was my only inspiration to do so. So, go ahead with your problem.”
Johnson looked at the little man sitting on the worn haircloth sofa. He shook his head doubtfully.
“The Chief in Washington said you were the only man that would be able to help me. I guess he made a mistake. I am afraid that the problem is too enormous for you.”
Mrs. Taine looked up from her sewing.
“You say that because you do not know my husband’s ability.”
“As a matter of fact,” added Taine, “in my best moments I feel that no one fully understands what I am capable of. I am small, weigh about one hundred pounds, and, yet, you can believe me or not, there are times when I seem to be inspired, endowed with superhuman power. I had a medium tell me once that I was a dual personality, and, of course, if that is true, it is a very wonderful asset. I think, if I might be bold enough to advise you, Mr. Johnson, that you can accept me as being just as capable as the Washington Chief says I am. Now tell me your troubles!”
Johnson surrendered. For over an hour he poured out his story, which grew more and more bitter as he recited it. Taine acted most of the time as though he were asleep, but Mrs. Taine listened with the most intent expression. Finally, she could not contain herself any longer.
“Why, those mean men!” she exclaimed. “They act just like a lot of catty women.”
Taine stiffened in his chair, and began to breathe a little fast. Finally, Johnson finished. The little detective sighed deeply.
“I can help you, sir, but it is going to be a rather dangerous affair. There is all the evidence of big things happening, and when big things happen, human life does not count for much, especially not the life of a human such as I am. They would kill me just as they would squash a potato bug. But I will go into it and give you a report when I finish, and I won’t stop till I am either through or dead.”
“You don’t mean to say that you have a clue?” demanded Johnson.
“There are a lot of scattered threads. If I told you what each one was, you would not believe me. I believe I see something. Enough to make me want to investigate. I will begin at once, just as soon as you show your good faith by paying me one-half of my fee; the other half can be paid when I make my final report.”
Johnson smiled. He saw the threadbare furniture, the “GOD BLESS OUR HOME” and “A GOOD WIFE IS THE NOBLEST WORK OF GOD” signs on the wall, and without hesitancy, he pulled out his checkbook and fountain pen and said smilingly, “How much?”
“One million dollars for the first payment,” and Taine said it without blinking an eyelash. His wife sank back in her chair and closed her eyes. Johnson looked at the man in front of him. Suddenly the New Yorker smiled.
“I will write it at o
nce. Any man that can do that to Johnson can get away with murder. Here is the check. If you ever make your mind up to go into business in New York, you come and see me. I would rather have you as a partner than an enemy. Now, get busy. I must get back to New York. They are raising Cain with the stock market in my absence. Good-night, Taine! Good-night, Mrs. Taine! I congratulate you on your having such a husband, and he was out of the house before they could realize it.
“You are wonderful, dear,” whispered Mrs. Taine. “Now, I can stay on as president of the Missionary Society. Won’t we be proud to see the new church that was built so largely through your efforts?”
Taine refused to smile, as he replied, “You save enough out of that hundred thousand to put in a Memorial Tablet for your departed husband, because I have an uneasy feeling that when I finish this, it will finish me. I am sure enough scared of those people.”
“But you always have been able to take care of yourself?”
“Yes—so far—but then I always had men to work against.”
“But I thought Mr. Johnson said these were men?”
“Yes, that is what he said…”
The next day Taine left San Francisco. He did not even take the little black dog with him.
Chapter VI: Taine Goes To Work
There was no doubt as to the exclusiveness of the Bridge Club of New York city. It was rumored to have cost twenty-five million but that, no doubt, was an exaggeration. It was said to be very elegant in all of its furnishings, and that also was open to question, for no one except the members ever entered its doors, and they were rather shy about whom they invited to go with them as guests. Rumor said that it was really the headquarters of the new business group, that the name was just a cover for other more formidable activities, but no one could either prove or disprove this.
It had been built rapidly but soundly. Its walls were thick and soundproof; even the best of inventors would have encountered the greatest difficulties in detecting the sounds originating in some of these rooms. The problem of finding out what was happening in that building was thoroughly discussed in Washington between Taine and some other interested gentlemen, and it was finally decided that the only way to secure this information was to go in and secure it; and this was more easily said than done.
Taine had all kinds of ideas. Some he talked about freely with anyone that would listen to him. Others he whispered to himself at the dead of midnight in his bed, and some of them he did not even dare whisper. After the conference in Washington, he decided that the only way to do a thing was to do it; so, he started in to do it in the only way that seemed practical to him. A thousand wild, foolish plans occurred to him, but always he came back to the same idea—the only way to find out what was going on in the Bridge Club was to go inside and find out. He was confident that the solution to the entire problem was inside that building, in combination with what was inside of his brain.
Careful investigation in New York disclosed one thing: every servant working in the Bridge Club was a carefully selected, highly intelligent person. The next interesting thing was that all of the employees were women. That was so very opposite to the rule that, in itself, it constituted a very interesting fact. Here was a club of men, highly moral, very rich and sedate business men, many of whom lived at the Club, and all of the servants were women!
Taine had been a woman in China. He did not like it very much, this idea of masquerading as one of the opposite sex, but he had done it and he could do it again. For a few days he just watched the women come and go through the back entrance of the Club. Finally, he selected one who looked just a little like Taine, about the same height and age, a little woman with red hair. The detective studied her on the street, in the subway and finally in her boarding house. By the end of a week he had a very accurate idea of her habits. Then he secured a room in a boarding house near-by; an introduction was effected in a neighboring church, and in no time at all Taine was courting the red-haired lady, who turned out to be a telephone operator at the Club.
She was rather flattered to have such a distinguished-looking man pay attention to her. Of course, Taine was really rather commonplace, but his manners were elegant, and he had lots of money to spend, and he was so sympathetic, and kind. At the end of another week the red-haired girl was beginning to dream, and even talk a little about her ambitions. Then one night she left on a train for the West, heavily guarded by several determined women. Her room in the boarding house was occupied as usual by a red-haired woman, who spent some hours of the early morning in preparing an elaborate make-up. That morning at eight, Minnie Smith, the telephone operator for the eight-hour-day shift, passed with other female employees into the rear entrance of the Bridge Club. Once again Taine had accomplished the apparently impossible.
For a week the little detective, in a red wig and a rather gay dress, worked eight hours a day as a telephone operator. He found out a great many things about the Bridge Club. To be exact, he found out about one-millionth part of what he wanted to discover. To say that he was discouraged was a rather mild way of expressing his disappointment. The mystery that he was trying to solve was all around him, in fact, he was able to feel part of it, but nothing happened to make it possible for him to come closer to it. He watched the members of the Club pass in and out, he heard their voices over the telephone, very occasionally one spoke to him as the opportunity presented, but otherwise, his time was wasted.
He worked at the switchboard in a rather automatic manner, his past work having enabled him to have eyes in the back of his head and ears all over. Between calls he thought, and, finally, he was satisfied that he was thinking in a circle, ending where he began and producing no results. In reality, his subconscious mind was working far faster and to better effect than his conscious mind, but of course, he was not aware of that comforting fact.
In final despair, he decided to leave and start all over again, but the night before he did this he had a dream—not much of a dream, but interesting. A number of cats were tormenting a man, attacking and biting him in every possible way, and just as he awoke he heard his wife say, “They just act like a lot of catty women!”
He remembered the dream when he awoke. In fact, he wrote it on a piece of paper. Then he began to put some of the threads together—the hospital in China, the Doctor in San Francisco who wore a ring that he had given to a woman in China, the fact that all these people played bridge, the clothing that they wore, the resentment which they aroused in the golf-playing money-men of America.
For a week Taine worked hard. As a red-headed telephone operator he put in his eight hours a day. During the rest of the sixteen hours he received strange callers in his small boarding house room. Scientists, psychiatrists, college professors came from all parts of the East to see him, and from each of them he gathered the special little piece of information that they possessed and that he needed. They were well paid for their trouble by orders on the multi-millionaire Johnson. They thought that they were dealing with some mild form of insane crank, but Taine simply kept his colorless personality and found out what he wanted to know, and at the end of an exhausting week the little man had more threads gathered together.
Then, to his delight, he was promoted to attend to the telephone in the Manager’s office. He had an idea that there he might have an opportunity to learn something about the real meaning of the Club. He found, to his great pleasure, that from that office ran private lines to all parts of the United States, and that the so called Manager often spent hours in conversation with men of importance all over the country. These calls were all handled by the red-haired operator, and he lost no time in making a list of those who had possession of the other ends of these long-distance wires. He even listened in on some of the conversations, and gathered what he felt was partial evidence, which proved that some of his surmises were correct.
He was sure that in a short time he would have all of the threads gathered together into a real rope of evidence.
Then one day h
e was kept busy for several hours, connecting the Manager with a dozen of the big men. It seemed that they had been called to New York for a conference. That meeting was to be held at 9 P.M. That evening in the Manager’s office. Taine made up his mind that he would be there. No matter what happened, he just had to be there. He knew that in that conference there would be disclosures of the greatest importance. The telephone conversations had indicated that something great, gigantic, stupendous was brewing in the steaming pot of destiny, stirred by these financial giants. All that afternoon as he worked he cast glances around the office. Where could he hide?
* * * *
The meeting was held that evening as arranged. It was a peculiar gathering. Probably never, in the history of the world, had there been one like it. At the head of the table, as was her due, sat Miss Patricia Powers, now nearly sixty years old. When her father died, she had been the richest woman in America. Now, she was probably the richest woman in the world. During those years, following her father’s death, her financial life had been interesting on account of the fact that every investment that she had made had been directed by another woman. Not a single dollar had been under the control of the masculine sex.
The greatly increased financial ability of the feminine world was shown by the fact that during all those years not a dollar had been lost; every investment had been wisely planned and had brought a rich reward, and the women who had worked thus for Miss Patricia Powers had received, as their reward, the hearty and generous support of this rich woman in all their plans. Thus, she was entitled to a place at the head of the table. She was a rather ugly woman, and her elaborate costume, her garish display of jewelry, her peculiar taste in regard to cosmetics accentuated this ugliness. Gossip stated that no man had ever offered to marry her. It may easily be seen that this neglect had been a large factor in her conduct during the past ten years.
Gynomorphs Page 5
