"I see," said Mr. Priestly, laying down the final letter upon the previous ones, and with great delicacy and precision placing a gla.s.s paperweight squarely in the middle of them. "Permit me to retain these letters for a short time. I wish to take them before our board of directors."

"When?" asked Wallingford.

"Well, our regular monthly meeting--" began Mr. Priestly.

"No, you don't," interrupted the other. "I think a few minutes of conversation with Mr. Alexander himself would do away entirely with the necessity of consulting the board of directors. You think it possible, I know, that by going directly to Mr. Klug and his friends you would be able to purchase the patents cheaper than you can from me, but I am quite sure I can convince Klug and his company that these gentlemen will raise the price on you."

"Why didn't you form this new company in the first place, then?"

demanded Mr. Priestly sharply, implying a doubt. "Why do you come to us at all!"

"Because I personally," patiently explained Wallingford, "can make more money by quietly selling the patent to you than I personally can make by selling it openly to them, as you will see if you reflect a moment. At present I own a twelfth share in the company. If I induce this other company to take hold of it I must divide the purchase price into twelve equal shares, of which I receive but one. Is Mr. Alexander in the city?"

"I believe so," hesitated Mr. Priestly.

"Is he in his office?"

"Possibly," admitted the other.

"Oh, he's in, then," concluded Wallingford sagely. "Well, I think you can give me my answer in an hour. I'll be down at the Hotel Vandyne. You might telephone me. I want to go back West this evening."

It did not take Mr. Priestly and Mr. Alexander sixty minutes to conclude that they could save a lot of money by doing business with Mr.

Wallingford, and they asked him to drive up to their office and see them again. When they got through "d.i.c.kering," Mr. Wallingford had agreed, in writing, to deliver over to them, within sixty days, the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company patents, for the sum of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, the receipt of a ten-thousand-dollar advance payment being acknowledged therewith.

Before he started West, Wallingford wired Maylie: "Note due in morning.

Advise bank on quiet to sue."

CHAPTER XVI

THE FINANCIER TAKES A FLYING TRIP TO EUROPE ON AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART

A storm that he had scarcely expected awaited Wallingford when he returned. His wife met him furiously. She had all her belongings packed separately from his own, and would have been gone before his arrival but that she could not express her anger in a mere letter.

"It is the last straw, Jim!" she charged him. "You're growing worse all the time. I saw that you were throwing me with this puppy Feldmeyer deliberately, but was foolish enough to think that you were doing it only so that I might be amused while you were busy. As well as I know you, I did not suspect that you could possibly bring yourself to use me as a lever to borrow money from him!"

A twinkle that he could not help came into Wallingford's eyes as he thought of how easily Feldmeyer had been bent to his own ends, and it was most unfortunate for him, for she caught the look and interpreted it instantly.

"You're even proud of it!" she cried. "There's nothing in this world sacred to you. Why, only last night he made open love to me and insisted that I 'disappear' with him on a trip he is taking. He only laughed when I told him how I hated him. He had been drinking, and he and Maylie had been together. They are on to you, Jim. Maylie has found out something about you and has told Feldmeyer, and now the man would believe anything of you. He showed me your notes, and as good as told me that I was in partnership with you in getting money out of him. And you exposed me to this!"

"Where is he?" asked Wallingford unsteadily.

"I shan't tell you. He has left the city. He left this morning, and I have been considering whether, after all, I had not better stay sold."

They were in the parlor. Now she opened the door into the next room.

"Where are you going?" he asked, stepping toward her.

For reply she only laughed, the most unpleasant laugh he had ever heard from her, and, stepping through, closed the door. Before he could reach it she had bolted it. He went immediately into the hall, but all the other doors to their suite were also locked.

Maylie stepped out of the elevator as he was pondering what to do.

"Heard you had come in," said the lawyer, in a jaunty tone of easy familiarity. "How are tricks?"

The fellow stood in front of the open parlor door, and the light streamed upon his face. Wallingford, in the dimness, could study his countenance without exposing his own to such full scrutiny. There sat upon Maylie a new self-possession that had something insolent about it.

f.a.n.n.y had been right. Maylie had been getting reports upon him.

"Step in," he cordially invited, and Maylie walked into the parlor. It was noticeable that he kept his hat on until after he had sat down.

"Tricks are very fair indeed," continued Wallingford in answer to the offhand question. "We're going to get through with it in good shape."

Maylie laughed.

"You're all right," he said. "From all accounts you're a wonder. No matter what you tackle, the milk stopper business, carpet tacks, insurance, sales recorders, you're always a winner," and after this hint that he knew something of Wallingford's past he lit a cigarette with arrogant nonchalance, then got up to close the hall door which had been left slightly ajar.

Wallingford's half-closed eyes followed him across the room with a gleam in which there boded no good for Mr. Maylie. Turning, however, Maylie found his host laughing heartily.

"I seldom pick up the hot end of it," a.s.serted Wallingford. "How about the bank?"

"They're offering suit right now, and the Pneumatic will not pay the note. The company hasn't the money, and the tightening up of the local financial situation that has come about in the past month will make it almost impossible to realize on such trifling securities as the members have. Moreover, if they had money they're scared stiff, and not one of them would put up a dollar, except Klug, perhaps. They'll let the company go to a forced sale. I guess that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I'm not going to say about that," replied Wallingford. "The less we talk, even with the doors locked, the better."

"That's so," agreed Maylie; "only there's one point of it we _must_ talk about. How did you come out in the East?"

"I have just told you not to try to know too much."

"I don't want to know too much. I only want to know where I come in."

"Your experience with me ought to tell you that you will have no occasion to quarrel with your fee."

"I thought so," retorted Maylie, leaning forward with a laugh that was more like a sneer; "but I want more than a fee, and I'm going to have more than a fee!"

For just one instant Wallingford almost lost his suavity, but whatever game he played he held all its tangled ends continuously in view.

"So we're all thieves together, eh?" he said, smiling, and the gleam of gratification upon Maylie's face a.s.sured him that he was upon the right track. "Of course, I know that you have a string on me in this matter and can hold me up," he admitted, as if reluctantly, "so suppose we say ten thousand for you, if the deal goes through the way I want it."

"Now you're shouting!" exclaimed Maylie, and rising impulsively he shook hands with great enthusiasm. "You may count on me."

"I do," said Wallingford, also rising; and, still keeping his grip of the lawyer's hand, he turned his back squarely to the window, so that Maylie would be compelled to face it. "I consider you as mine from this minute."

As he said the words there came that little flicker in Maylie's close set eyes for which he had been looking. It told of negation--that Maylie still held his own plans in reserve. So adroit himself in plot and counterplot, it was no trick for Wallingford to fathom this amateur, and he let the lawyer go away hugging the delusion that he had this experienced schemer under his thumb; then Wallingford once more turned his attention to the locked door.

The silence within those other rooms had become oppressive, and a panic began to come over him. He knocked, but there was no response. He went out into the hall once more, and trying each of the k.n.o.bs shook them.

The far door, to his surprise, opened under his hand. Not one valued possession of Mrs. Wallingford's was in evidence. Empty dresser drawers were open, and two suit cases were gone. A trunk in the corner stood wide, and its bulky articles of lesser worth were strewn upon the floor.

He immediately telephoned from that room. Yes, Mrs. Wallingford had gone. No, they did not know to which depot. She had merely called a cab and had hurried away. He ordered up time tables and studied them feverishly. Almost at this very moment trains were leaving from two different depots, and these were more than three miles apart. There was no chance of finding quickly to which one she had gone. A horrible fear oppressed him. That she had joined Feldmeyer was almost inconceivable, but that she might have taken even this revenge for the slight that had made her furious was a thought in harmony with the principles by which, through his own moral warp, he judged humanity, and he was frantic. At Feldmeyer's office he found the door also locked and the rooms for rent!

The next train for the East found Wallingford upon it. He spent days in attempting to get on the track of them, and he finally found out about Feldmeyer. He had gone to Europe. On the sailing list almost any name might conceal his wife, and to Europe went Wallingford, misled by his own worse self. It was characteristic of him that, having found Feldmeyer and being convinced that Mrs. Wallingford had never joined that gentleman, he should remind the doctor that he had been "chased"