“Good-bye,” said Siward. “Don’t forget that I’m always at home.”
“You must get out,” muttered Plank; “you must get well, and get out into the sunshine.” And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him.
He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped down town — a glitter of bull’s-eye, brass, and varnish, with the mellow, horn notes floating far in their wake.
It was exactly four o’clock when he was ushered into Quarrier’s private suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire.
Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of leaving. He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not been expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly emphasised it as he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his greeting.
“You said four o’clock, I believe,” observed Plank bluntly.
“Ah, yes. It was about that — ah — matter — ah — I beg your pardon; can you recollect?”
“I don’t know what it is you want. You requested this meeting,” said Plank, yawning.
“Certainly. I recollect it perfectly now. Will you sit here, Mr. Plank — for a moment—”
“If it concerns Inter-County, it will take longer than a moment — unless you cannot spare the time now,” said Plank. “Shall we call it off?”
“As a matter of fact I am rather short of time just now.”
“Then let us postpone it. I shall probably be at my office if you are anxious to see me.”
Quarrier looked at him, then laid aside his hat and sat down. There was little to be done in diplomacy with an oaf like that.
“Mr. Plank,” he said, without any emphasis at all, “there should be some way for us to come together. Have you considered it?”
“No, I haven’t,” replied Plank.
“I mean, for you and me to try to understand each other.”
“For us?” asked Plank, raising his blond eyebrows. “Do you mean Amalgamated Electric and Inter-County, impersonally?”
“I mean for us, personally.”
“There is no way,” said Plank, with conviction.
“I think there is.”
“You are wasting time thinking it, Mr. Quarrier.”
Quarrier’s velvet-fringed eyes began to narrow, but his calm voice remained unchanged: “We are merely wasting energy in this duel,” he said.
“Oh, no; I don’t feel wasted.”
“We are also wasting opportunities,” continued Quarrier slowly. “This whole matter is involving us in a tangle of litigation requiring our constant effort, constant attention.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Quarrier, but you take it too seriously. I have found, in this affair, nothing except a rather agreeable mental exhilaration.”
“Mr. Plank, if you are not inclined to be serious—”
“I am,” said Plank so savagely that Quarrier, startled, could not doubt him. “I like this sort of thing, Mr. Quarrier. Anything that is hard to overcome, I like to overcome. The pleasure in life, to me, is to win out. I am fighting you with the greatest possible satisfaction to myself.”
“Perhaps you see victory ahead,” said Quarrier calmly.
“I do, Mr. Quarrier, I do. But not in the manner you fear I may hope for it.”
“Do you mind saying in what manner you are already discounting your victory, Mr Plank?”
“No, I don’t mind telling you. I have no batteries to mask. I don’t care how much you know about my resources; so I’ll tell you what I see, Mr. Quarrier. I see a parody of the popular battle between razor-back and rattler. The rattler only strives to strike and kill, not to swallow. Mr. Quarrier, that old razor-back isn’t going home hungry; but — he’s going home.”
“I’m afraid I am not familiar enough with the natural history you quote to follow you,” said Quarrier with a sneer, his long fingers busy with the silky point of his beard.
“No, you won’t follow me home; you’ll come with me, when it’s all over. Now is it very plain to you, Mr. Quarrier?”
Quarrier said, without emotion: “I repeat that it would be easy for you and me to merge our differences on a basis absolutely satisfactory to you and to me — and to Harrington.”
“You are mistaken,” said Plank, rising. “Good afternoon.”
Quarrier rose, too. “You decline to discuss the matter?” he asked.
“It has been discussed sufficiently.”
“Then why did you come here?”
“To see for myself how afraid of me you really are,” said Plank. “Now I know, and so do you.”
“You desire to make it a personal matter?” inquired Quarrier, in a low voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the room.
“Personal? No — impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for talking shop. I’m a shopkeeper, and I’m in the steel business, and I lack opportunities for cultivation. Good day.”
“Mr. Plank—”
“Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my chances, every one; and I take them — every one. For it is a good fight, Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. Your name, Harrington’s, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be remembered.”
He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier’s unwinking eyes.
“Take your fighting chance — it is the cleanest thing you ever touched; and use it cleanly, or there’ll be no mercy shown you when your time comes. Let the courts alone — do you hear me? Let the legislature alone. Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They’ll be warmer than his feet by this time next year.”
For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm dropped heavily — the old stolid expression came back into his face, leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand.
Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at his battered and bloodshot appearance.
“Oh,” said Mortimer, “you down here?”
“Have you been out of town?” asked Plank cautiously.
Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps of the rotunda.
“See here,” he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily even after the short chase across the lobby, “I meant to tell you something. Come over here and sit down a moment.”
Still grasping Plank’s elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at the he
at under his breath.
“Look here,” he said; “I promised you something once, didn’t I?”
“Did you?” said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an overgrown baby.
“Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I make good. D’ye see?”
“I don’t see,” said Plank, “what you are talking about.”
“I’m talking about what I said I’d do for you. Haven’t I made good? Haven’t I put you into everything I said I would? Don’t you go everywhere? Don’t people ask you everywhere?”
“Yes — in a way,” said Plank wearily. “I am very grateful; I always will be.... Can I do anything for you, Leroy?”
Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that Mortimer wanted.
It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a “killing” at Desmond’s, and, as usual, had provided the pièce de résistance for his soft-voiced host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had a pocket cheque-book and a stylograph.
“It’s damn little to ask, isn’t it?” he muttered resentfully. “That will only square matters with Desmond; it doesn’t leave me anything to go on with,” and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl.
Plank was discreetly silent.
“And that is not what I chased you for, either,” continued Mortimer. “I didn’t intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in another way!” He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank’s again:
“Beverly, old boy, I’ve got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any decent man would like to have him — by the scruff of his neck. He’s fit only to kick; and I’m going to kick him good and plenty; and in the process he’s going to let go of several things.” Mortimer leered, pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: “I mean, he’s going to drop several things that don’t belong to him. Leave it to me to shake him down; he’ll drop them all right.... One of ‘em’s yours.”
Plank looked at him.
“I told you once that I’d let you know when to step up and say ‘Good evening’ didn’t I?”
Plank continued to stare.
“Didn’t I?” repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance.
“I don’t understand you,” said Plank, “and I don’t think I want to understand you.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer thickly; “don’t you want to marry that girl!” but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted Plank’s blue eyes.
“All right,” he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively backing away; “I thought you meant business. I — what the devil do I care who you marry! It’s the last time I try to do anything for you, or for anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I’ve plenty to worry over; I’ve a lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do kindnesses to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!”
Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out.
“I am not ungrateful,” he said. “You may say almost anything except that, Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you have made a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you offered to interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never tolerate from anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you didn’t. However, you understand it now. So let us forget the matter.”
But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being misunderstood, squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat down, a martyr to his emotions. “To think,” he gulped, “that you, of all men, should turn on me like this!”
“I didn’t mean to. Can’t you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?”
“Hurt hell!” retorted Mortimer vindictively. “You’ve had sensation battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don’t play that old con game on me! You tried to get her and you couldn’t. Now I come along and offer to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash! There’s another lady, that’s all.”
“Let it go at that, then,” said Plank, reddening.
“But I tell you—”
“Drop it!” snapped Plank.
“Oh, very well! if you’re going to take it that way again—”
“I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going when I met you?”
“What do you want to know for?” asked Mortimer sullenly.
“Why, I’ll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself with Quarrier’s people, of seeking him at this juncture with the expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do so.”
“Investing!” sneered Mortimer. “Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated Electric gang. Don’t worry. If there’s any shaking down to be done, I’ll do it, my friend,” and he rose, and started toward the elevators.
“Wait,” said Plank. “Why, man, you can’t frighten Quarrier! What did you sell your holdings for? Why didn’t you come to us — to me? What’s the use of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can’t scare a man like that.”
Mortimer fairly grinned in his face.
“Your big mistake,” he sneered, “is in undervaluing others. You don’t think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I’m going to try to take care of myself all the same.” He laughed, showing his big teeth, and the vanity in him began to drug him. “No, you think I don’t know much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you to understand,” he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business required— “I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of them is that I’m not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I’m not afraid of you!”
“Leroy—”
“No, not afraid of you, either!” repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. “Don’t try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, Beverly! I’m getting tired of it; I’m tired of it now, by God! You keep a civil tongue in your head after this — do you understand? — and we’ll get on all right. If you don’t, I’ve the means to make you!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Not a bit of it! Too damn sane for you and Leila to hoodwink!”
“You are crazy!” repeated Plank, aghast.
“Am I? You and Leila can take the matter into court, if you want to — unless I do. And” — here he leaned forward, showing his teeth again— “the next time you kiss her, close the door!”
Then he went away up the marble steps and entered an elevator; and Plank, grave and pale, went out into the street and entered his big touring-car. But the drive up town and through the sunlit park gave him no pleasure, and he entered his great house with a heavy, lifeless step, head bent, as though counting every crevice in the stones under his lagging feet. For the first time in all his life he was afraid of a man.
The man he was afraid of had gone directly to Quarrier’s office, missing the gentleman he was seeking by such a small fraction of a minute that he realised they must have passed each other in the elevators, he ascending while Quarrier was descending.
Mortimer turned and hurried to the elevator, hoping to come up with Quarrier in the rotunda, or possibly in the street outside; but he was too late, and, furious to think of the time he had wasted with Plank, he crawled into a hansom and bade the driver take him to a number he gave, designating one of the new limestone basement houses on the upper west side.
All the way up town, as he jolted about in his seat, he angrily regretted the meeting with Plank, even in spite of the chequ
e. What demon had possessed him to boast — to display his hand when there had been no necessity? Plank was still ready to give him aid at a crisis — had always been ready. Time enough when Plank turned stingy to use persuasion; time enough when Plank attempted to dodge him to employ a club. And now, for no earthly reason, intoxicated with his own vanity, catering to his own long-smouldering resentment, he had used his club on a willing horse — deliberately threatened a man whose gratitude had been good for many a cheque yet.
“Ass that I am!” fumed Mortimer; “now when I’m stuck I’ll have to go at him with the club, if I want any money out of him. Confound him, he’s putting me in a false position! He’s trying to make it look like extortion! I won’t do it! I’m no blackmailer! I’ll starve, before I go to him again! No blundering, clumsy Dutchman can make a blackmailer out of me by holding hands with that scoundrelly wife of mine! That’s the reason he did it, too! Between them they are trying to make my loans from Plank look like blackmail! It would serve them right if I took them up — if I called their bluff, and stuck Plank up in earnest! But I won’t, to please them! I won’t do any dirty thing like that, to humour them! Not much!”
He lay back, rolling about in the jouncing cab, scowling at space.
“Not much!” he repeated. “I’ll shake down Quarrier, though! I’ll make him pay for his treachery — scaring me out of Amalgamated! That will be restitution, not extortion!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 313
