_ CHAPTER XII
Mr. Ryder remained at his desk and did not even look up when his visitor entered. He pretended to be busily preoccupied with his papers, which was a favourite pose of his when receiving strangers. This frigid reception invariably served its purpose, for it led visitors not to expect more than they got, which usually was little enough. For several minutes Shirley stood still, not knowing whether to advance or to take a seat. She gave a little conventional cough, and Ryder looked up. What he saw so astonished him that he at once took from his mouth the cigar he was smoking and rose from his seat. He had expected a gaunt old maid with spectacles, and here was a stylish, good-looking young woman, who could not possibly be over twenty-five. There was surely some mistake. This slip of a girl could not have written "The American Octopus." He advanced to greet Shirley.
"You wish to see me, Madame?" he asked courteously. There were times when even John Burkett Ryder could be polite.
"Yes," replied Shirley, her voice trembling a little in spite of her efforts to keep cool. "I am here by appointment. Three o'clock, Mrs. Ryder's note said. I am Miss Green."
"You--Miss Green?" echoed the financier dubiously.
"Yes, I am Miss Green--Shirley Green, author of 'The American Octopus.' You asked me to call. Here I am."
For the first time in his life, John Ryder was nonplussed. He coughed and stammered and looked round for a place where he could throw his cigar. Shirley, who enjoyed his embarrassment, put him at his ease.
"Oh, please go on smoking," she said; "I don't mind it in the least."
Ryder threw the cigar into a receptacle and looked closely at his visitor.
"So you are Shirley Green, eh?"
"That is my nom-de-plume--yes," replied the girl nervously. She was already wishing herself back at Massapequa. The financier eyed her for a moment in silence as if trying to gauge the strength of the personality of this audacious young woman, who had dared to criticise his business methods in public print; then, waving her to a seat near his desk, he said:
"Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you," murmured Shirley. She sat down, and he took his seat at the other side of the desk, which brought them face to face. Again inspecting the girl with a close scrutiny that made her cheeks burn, Ryder said:
"I rather expected--" He stopped for a moment as if uncertain what to say, then he added: "You're younger than I thought you were, Miss Green, much younger."
"Time will remedy that," smiled Shirley. Then, mischievously, she added: "I rather expected to see Mrs. Ryder."
There was the faintest suspicion of a smile playing around the corners of the plutocrat's mouth as he picked up a book lying on his desk and replied:
"Yes--she wrote you, but I--wanted to see you about this."
Shirley's pulse throbbed faster, but she tried hard to appear unconcerned as she answered:
"Oh, my book--have you read it?"
"I have," replied Ryder slowly and, fixing her with a stare that was beginning to make her uncomfortable, he went on: "No doubt your time is valuable, so I'll come right to the point. I want to ask you, Miss Green, where you got the character of your central figure--the Octopus, as you call him--John Broderick?"
"From imagination--of course," answered Shirley.
Ryder opened the book, and Shirley noticed that there were several passages marked. He turned the leaves over in silence for a minute or two and then he said:
"You've sketched a pretty big man here--"
"Yes," assented Shirley, "he has big possibilities, but I think he makes very small use of them."
Ryder appeared not to notice her commentary, and, still reading the book, he continued:
"On page 22 you call him 'the world's greatest individualized potentiality, a giant combination of materiality, mentality and money--the greatest exemplar of individual human will in existence to-day.' And you make indomitable will and energy the keystone of his marvellous success. Am I right?" He looked at her questioningly.
"Quite right," answered Shirley.
Ryder proceeded:
"On page 26 you say 'the machinery of his money-making mind typifies the laws of perpetual unrest. It must go on, relentlessly, resistlessly, ruthlessly making money-making money and continuing to make money. It cannot stop until the machinery crumbles.'"
Laying the book down and turning sharply on Shirley, he asked her bluntly:
"Do you mean to say that I couldn't stop to-morrow if I wanted to?"
She affected to not understand him.
"You?" she inquired in a tone of surprise.
"Well--it's a natural question," stammered Ryder, with a nervous little laugh; "every man sees himself in the hero of a novel just as every woman sees herself in the heroine. We're all heroes and heroines in our own eyes. But tell me what's your private opinion of this man. You drew the character. What do you think of him as a type, how would you classify him?"
"As the greatest criminal the world has yet produced," replied Shirley without a moment's hesitation.
The financier looked at the girl in unfeigned astonishment.
"Criminal?" he echoed.
"Yes, criminal," repeated Shirley decisively. "He is avarice, egotism, and ambition incarnate. He loves money because he loves power, and he loves power more than his fellow man."
Ryder laughed uneasily. Decidedly, this girl had opinions of her own which she was not backward to express.
"Isn't that rather strong?" he asked.
"I don't think so," replied Shirley. Then quickly she asked: "But what does it matter? No such man exists."
"No, of course not," said Ryder, and he relapsed into silence.
Yet while he said nothing, the plutocrat was watching his visitor closely from under his thick eyebrows. She seemed supremely unconscious of his scrutiny. Her aristocratic, thoughtful face gave no sign that any ulterior motive had actuated her evidently very hostile attitude against him. That he was in her mind when she drew the character of John Broderick there was no doubt possible. No matter how she might evade the identification, he was convinced he was the hero of her book. Why had she attacked him so bitterly? At first, it occurred to him that blackmail might be her object; she might be going to ask for money as the price of future silence. Yet it needed but a glance at her refined and modest demeanour to dispel that idea as absurd. Then he remembered, too, that it was not she who had sought this interview, but himself. No, she was no blackmailer. More probably she was a dreamer--one of those meddling sociologists who, under pretence of bettering the conditions of the working classes, stir up discontent and bitterness of feeling. As such, she might prove more to be feared than a mere blackmailer whom he could buy off with money. He knew he was not popular, but he was no worse than the other captains of industry. It was a cut-throat game at best. Competition was the soul of commercial life, and if he had outwitted his competitors and made himself richer than all of them, he was not a criminal for that. But all these attacks in newspapers and books did not do him any good. One day the people might take these demagogic writings seriously and then there would be the devil to pay. He took up the book again and ran over the pages. This certainly was no ordinary girl. She knew more and had a more direct way of saying things than any woman he had ever met. And as he watched her furtively across the desk he wondered how he could use her; how instead of being his enemy, he could make her his friend. If he did not, she would go away and write more such books, and literature of this kind might become a real peril to his interests. Money could do anything; it could secure the services of this woman and prevent her doing further mischief. But how could he employ her? Suddenly an inspiration came to him. For some years he had been collecting material for a history of the Empire Trading Company. She could write it. It would practically be his own biography. Would she undertake it?
Embarrassed by the long silence, Shirley finally broke it by saying:
"But you didn't ask me to call merely to find out what I thought of my own work."
"No," replied Ryder slowly, "I want you to do some work for me."
He opened a drawer at the left-hand side of his desk and took out several sheets of foolscap and a number of letters. Shirley's heart beat faster as she caught sight of the letters. Were her father's among them? She wondered what kind of work John Burkett Ryder had for her to do and if she would do it whatever it was. Some literary work probably, compiling or something of that kind. If it was well paid, why should she not accept? There would be nothing humiliating in it; it would not tie her hands in any way. She was a professional writer in the market to be employed by whoever could pay the price. Besides, such work might give her better opportunities to secure the letters of which she was in search. Gathering in one pile all the papers he had removed from the drawer, Mr. Ryder said:
"I want you to put my biography together from this material. But first," he added, taking up "The American Octopus," "I want to know where you got the details of this man's life."
"Oh, for the most part--imagination, newspapers, magazines," replied Shirley carelessly. "You know the American millionaire is a very overworked topic just now--and naturally I've read--"
"Yes, I understand," he said, "but I refer to what you haven't read--what you couldn't have read. For example, here." He turned to a page marked in the book and read aloud: "As an evidence of his petty vanity, when a youth he had a beautiful Indian girl tattooed just above the forearm." Ryder leaned eagerly forward as he asked her searchingly: "Now who told you that I had my arm tattooed when I was a boy?"
"Have you?" laughed Shirley nervously. "What a curious coincidence!"
"Let me read you another coincidence," said Ryder meaningly. He turned to another part of the book and read: "the same eternal long black cigar always between his lips..." "General Grant smoked, too," interrupted Shirley. "All men who think deeply along material lines seem to smoke."
"Well, we'll let that go. But how about this?" He turned back a few pages and read: "John Broderick had loved, when a young man, a girl who lived in VERMONT, BUT CIRCUMSTANCES SEPARATED THEM." He stopped and stared at Shirley a moment and then he said: "I loved a girl when I was a lad and she came from Vermont, and circumstances separated us. That isn't coincidence, for presently you make John Broderick marry a young woman who had money. I married a girl with money."
"Lots of men marry for money," remarked Shirley.
"I said WITH money, not for money," retorted Ryder. Then turning again to the book, he said: "Now, this is what I can't understand, for no one could have told you this but I myself. Listen." He read aloud: "WITH ALL HIS PHYSICAL BRAVERY AND PERSONAL COURAGE, JOHN BRODERICK WAS INTENSELY AFRAID OF DEATH. IT WAS ON HIS MIND CONSTANTLY." "Who told you that?" he demanded somewhat roughly. "I swear I've never mentioned it to a living soul."
"Most men who amass money are afraid of death," replied Shirley with outward composure, "for death is about the only thing that can separate them from their money."
Ryder laughed, but it was a hollow, mocking laugh, neither sincere nor hearty. It was a laugh such as the devil may have given when driven out of heaven.
"You're quite a character!" He laughed again, and Shirley, catching the infection, laughed, too. "It's me and it isn't me," went on Ryder flourishing the book. "This fellow Broderick is all right; he's successful and he's great, but I don't like his finish."'
"It's logical," ventured Shirley.
"It's cruel," insisted Ryder.
"So is the man who reverses the divine law and hates his neighbour instead of loving him," retorted Shirley.
She spoke more boldly, beginning to feel more sure of her ground, and it amused her to fence in this way with the man of millions. So far, she thought, he had not got the best of her. She was fast becoming used to him, and her first feeling of intimidation was passing away.
"Um!" grunted Ryder, "you're a curious girl; upon my word you interest me!" He took the mass of papers lying at his elbow and pushed them over to her. "Here," he said, "I want you to make as clever a book out of this chaos as you did out of your own imagination."
Shirley turned the papers over carelessly.
"So you think your life is a good example to follow?" she asked with a tinge of irony.
"Isn't it?" he demanded.
The girl looked him square in the face.
"Suppose," she said, "we all wanted to follow it, suppose we all wanted to be the richest, the most powerful personage in the world?"
"Well--what then?" he demanded.
"I think it would postpone the era of the Brotherhood of man indefinitely, don't you?"
"I never thought of it from that point of view," admitted the billionaire. "Really," he added, "you're an extraordinary girl. Why, you can't be more than twenty--or so."
"I'm twenty-four--or so," smiled Shirley.
Ryder's face expanded in a broad smile. He admired this girl's pluck and ready wit. He grew more amiable and tried to gain her confidence. In a coaxing tone he said:
"Come, where did you get those details? Take me into your confidence."
"I have taken you into my confidence," laughed Shirley, pointing at her book. "It cost you $1.50!" Turning over the papers he had put before her she said presently: "I don't know about this."
"You don't think my life would make good reading?" he asked with some asperity.
"It might," she replied slowly, as if unwilling to commit herself as to its commercial or literary value. Then she said frankly: "To tell you the honest truth, I don't consider mere genius in money- making is sufficient provocation for rushing into print. You see, unless you come to a bad end, it would have no moral."
Ignoring the not very flattering insinuation contained in this last speech, the plutocrat continued to urge her:
"You can name your own price if you will do the work," he said. "Two, three or even five thousand dollars. It's only a few months' work."
"Five thousand dollars?" echoed Shirley. "That's a lot of money." Smiling, she added: "It appeals to my commercial sense. But I'm afraid the subject does not arouse my enthusiasm from an artistic standpoint."
Ryder seemed amused at the idea of any one hesitating to make five thousand dollars. He knew that writers do not run across such opportunities every day.
"Upon my word," he said, "I don't know why I'm so anxious to get you to do the work. I suppose it's because you don't want to. You remind me of my son. Ah, he's a problem!"
Shirley started involuntarily when Ryder mentioned his son. But he did not notice it.
"Why, is he wild?" she asked, as if only mildly interested.
"Oh, no, I wish he were," said Ryder.
"Fallen in love with the wrong woman, I suppose," she said.
"Something of the sort--how did you guess?" asked Ryder surprised.
Shirley coughed to hide her embarrassment and replied indifferently.
"So many boys do that. Besides," she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "I can hardly imagine that any woman would be the right one unless you selected her yourself!"
Ryder made no answer. He folded his arms and gazed at her. Who was this woman who knew him so well, who could read his inmost thoughts, who never made a mistake? After a silence he said:
"Do you know you say the strangest things?"
"Truth is strange," replied Shirley carelessly. "I don't suppose you hear it very often."
"Not in that form," admitted Ryder.
Shirley had taken on to her lap some of the letters he had passed her, and was perusing them one after another.
"All these letters from Washington consulting you on politics and finance--they won't interest the world."
"My secretary picked them out," explained Ryder. "Your artistic sense will tell you what to use."
"Does your son still love this girl? I mean the one you abject to?" inquired Shirley as she went on sorting the papers.
"Oh, no, he does not care for her any more," answered Ryder hastily.
"Yes, he does; he still loves her," said Shirley positively.
"How do you know?" asked Ryder amazed.
"From the way you say he doesn't," retorted Shirley.
Ryder gave his caller a look in which admiration was mingled with astonishment.
"You are right again," he said. "The idiot does love the girl."
"Bless his heart," said Shirley to herself. Aloud she said:
"I hope they'll both outwit you."
Ryder laughed in spite of himself. This young woman certainly interested him more than any other he had ever known.
"I don't think I ever met anyone in my life quite like you," he said.
"What's the objection to the girl?" demanded Shirley.
"Every objection. I don't want her in my family."
"Anything against her character?"
To better conceal the keen interest she took in the personal turn the conversation had taken, Shirley pretended to be more busy than ever with the papers.
"Yes--that is no--not that I know of," replied Ryder. "But because a woman has a good character, that doesn't necessarily make her a desirable match, does it?"
"It's a point in her favor, isn't it?"
"Yes--but--" He hesitated as if uncertain what to say.
"You know men well, don't you, Mr. Ryder?"
"I've met enough to know them pretty well," he replied.
"Why don't you study women for a change?" she asked. "That would enable you to understand a great many things that I don't think are quite clear to you now."
Ryder laughed good humouredly. It was decidedly a novel sensation to have someone lecturing him.
"I'm studying you," he said, "but I don't seem to make much headway. A woman like you whose mind isn't spoiled by the amusement habit has great possibilities--great possibilities. Do you know you're the first woman I ever took into my confidence--I mean at sight?" Again he fixed her with that keen glance which in his business life had taught him how to read men. He continued: "I'm acting on sentiment--something I rarely do, but I can't help it. I like you, upon my soul I do, and I'm going to introduce you to my wife--my son--"
He took the telephone from his desk as if he were going to use it.
"What a commander-in-chief you would have made--how natural it is for you to command," exclaimed Shirley in a burst of admiration that was half real, half mocking. "I suppose you always tell people what they are to do and how they are to do it. You are a born general. You know I've often thought that Napoleon and Caesar and Alexander must have been great domestic leaders as well as imperial rulers. I'm sure of it now."
Ryder listened to her in amazement. He was not quite sure if she were making fun of him or not.
"Well, of all--" he began. Then interrupting himself he said amiably: "Won't you do me the honour to meet my family?"
Shirley smiled sweetly and bowed.
"Thank you, Mr. Ryder, I will."
She rose from her seat and leaned over the manuscripts to conceal the satisfaction this promise of an introduction to the family circle gave her. She was quick to see that it meant more visits to the house, and other and perhaps better opportunities to find the objects of her search. Ryder lifted the receiver of his telephone and talked to his secretary in another room, while Shirley, who was still standing, continued examining the papers and letters.
"Is that you, Bagley? What's that? General Dodge? Get rid of him. I can't see him to-day. Tell him to come to-morrow. What's that? My son wants to see me? Tell him to come to the phone,"
At that instant Shirley gave a little cry, which in vain she tried to suppress. Ryder looked up.
"What's the matter?" he demanded startled.
"Nothing--nothing!" she replied in a hoarse whisper. "I pricked myself with a pin. Don't mind me."
She had just come across her father's missing letters, which had got mixed up, evidently without Ryder's knowledge, in the mass of papers he had handed her. Prepared as she was to find the letters somewhere in the house, she never dreamed that fate would put them so easily and so quickly into her hands; the suddenness of their appearance and the sight of her father's familiar signature affected her almost like a shock. Now she had them, she must not let them go again; yet how could she keep them unobserved? Could she conceal them? Would he miss them? She tried to slip them in her bosom while Ryder was busy at the 'phone, but he suddenly glanced in her direction and caught her eye. She still held the letters in her hand, which shook from nervousness, but he noticed nothing and went on speaking through the 'phone:
"Hallo, Jefferson, boy! You want to see me. Can you wait till I'm through? I've got a lady here. Going away? Nonsense! Determined, eh? Well, I can't keep you here if you've made up your mind. You want to say good-bye. Come up in about five minutes and I'll introduce you to a very interesting person." He laughed and hung up the receiver. Shirley was all unstrung, trying to overcome the emotion which her discovery had caused her, and in a strangely altered voice, the result of the nervous strain she was under, she said:
"You want me to come here?"
She looked up from the letters she was reading across to Ryder, who was standing watching her on the other side of the desk. He caught her glance and, leaning over to take some manuscript, he said:
"Yes, I don't want these papers to get--"
His eye suddenly rested on the letters she was holding. He stopped short, and reaching forward he tried to snatch them from her.
"What have you got there?" he exclaimed.
He took the letters and she made no resistance. It would be folly to force the issue now, she thought. Another opportunity would present itself. Ryder locked the letters up very carefully in the drawer on the left-hand side of his desk, muttering to himself rather than speaking to Shirley:
"How on earth did they get among my other papers?"
"From Judge Rossmore, were they not?" said Shirley boldly.
"How did you know it was Judge Rossmore?" demanded Ryder suspiciously. "I didn't know that his name had been mentioned."
"I saw his signature," she said simply. Then she added: "He's the father of the girl you don't like, isn't he?"
"Yes, he's the----"
A cloud came over the financier's face; his eyes darkened, his jaws snapped and he clenched his fist.
"How you must hate him!" said Shirley, who observed the change.
"Not at all," replied Ryder recovering his self-possession and suavity of manner. "I disagree with his politics and his methods, but--I know very little about him except that he is about to be removed from office."
"About to be?" echoed Shirley. "So his fate is decided even before he is tried?" The girl laughed bitterly." Yes," she went on, "some of the newspapers are beginning to think he is innocent of the things of which he is accused."
"Do they?" said Ryder indifferently.
"Yes," she persisted, "most people are on his side."
She planted her elbows on the desk in front of her, and looking him squarely in the face, she asked him point blank:
"Whose side are you on--really and truly?"
Ryder winced. What right had this woman, a stranger both to Judge Rossmore and himself, to come here and catechise him? He restrained his impatience with difficulty as he replied:
"Whose side am I on? Oh, I don't know that I am on any side. I don't know that I give it much thought. I--"
"Do you think this man deserves to be punished?" she demanded.
She had resumed her seat at the desk and partly regained her self- possession.
"Why do you ask? What is your interest in this matter?"
"I don't know," she replied evasively; "his case interests me, that's all. Its rather romantic. Your son loves this man's daughter. He is in disgrace--many seem to think unjustly." Her voice trembled with emotion as she continued: "I have heard from one source or another--you know I am acquainted with a number of newspaper men--I have heard that life no longer has any interest for him, that he is not only disgraced but beggared, that he is pining away slowly, dying of a broken heart, that his wife and daughter are in despair. Tell me, do you think he deserves such a fate?"
Ryder remained thoughtful a moment, and then he replied:
"No, I do not--no--"
Thinking that she had touched his sympathies, Shirley followed up her advantage:
"Oh, then, why not come to his rescue--you, who are so rich, so powerful; you, who can move the scales of justice at your will-- save this man from humiliation and disgrace!"
Ryder shrugged his shoulders, and his face expressed weariness, as if the subject had begun to bore him.
"My dear girl, you don't understand. His removal is necessary."
Shirley's face became set and hard. There was a contemptuous ring to her words as she retorted:
"Yet you admit that he may be innocent!"
"Even if I knew it as a fact, I couldn't move."
"Do you mean to say that if you had positive proof?" She pointed to the drawer in the desk where he had placed the letters. "If you had absolute proof in that drawer, for instance? Wouldn't you help him then?"
Ryder's face grew cold and inscrutable; he now wore his fighting mask.
"Not even if I had the absolute proof in that drawer?" he snapped viciously.
"Have you absolute proof in that drawer?" she demanded.
"I repeat that even if I had, I could not expose the men who have been my friends. It's noblesse oblige in politics as well as in society, you know."
He smiled again at her, as if he had recovered his good humour after their sharp passage at arms.
"Oh, it's politics--that's what the papers said. And you believe him innocent. Well, you must have some grounds for your belief."
"Not necessarily--"
"You said that even if you had the proofs, you could not produce them without sacrificing your friends, showing that your friends are interested in having this man put off the bench--" She stopped and burst into hysterical laughter. "Oh, I think you're having a joke at my expense," she went on, "just to see how far you can lead me. I daresay Judge Rossmore deserves all he gets. Oh, yes-- I'm sure he deserves it." She rose and walked to the other side of the room to conceal her emotion.
Ryder watched her curiously.
"My dear young lady, how you take this matter to heart!"
"Please forgive me," laughed Shirley, and averting her face to conceal the fact that her eyes were filled with tears. "It's my artistic temperament, I suppose. It's always getting me into trouble. It appealed so strongly to my sympathies--this story of hopeless love between two young people--with the father of the girl hounded by corrupt politicians and unscrupulous financiers. It was too much for me. Ah! ah! I forgot where I was!"
She leaned against a chair, sick and faint from nervousness, her whole body trembling. At that moment there was a knock at the library door and Jefferson Ryder appeared. Not seeing Shirley, whose back was towards him, he advanced to greet his father.
"You told me to come up in five minutes," he said. "I just wanted to say--"
"Miss Green," said Ryder, Sr., addressing Shirley and ignoring whatever it was that the young man wanted to say, "this is my son Jefferson. Jeff--this is Miss Green."
Jefferson looked in the direction indicated and stood as if rooted to the floor. He was so surprised that he was struck dumb. Finally, recovering himself, he exclaimed:
"Shirley!"
"Yes, Shirley Green, the author," explained Ryder, Sr., not noticing the note of familiar recognition in his exclamation.
Shirley advanced, and holding out her hand to Jefferson, said demurely:
"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Ryder." Then quickly, in an undertone, she added: "Be careful; don't betray me!"
Jefferson was so astounded that he did not see the outstretched hand. All he could do was to stand and stare first at her and then at his father.
"Why don't you shake hands with her?" said Ryder, Sr., "She won't bite you." Then he added: "Miss Green is going to do some literary work for me, so we shall see a great deal of her. It's too bad you're going away!" He chuckled at his own pleasantry.
"Father!" blurted out Jefferson, "I came to say that I've changed my mind. You did not want me to go, and I feel I ought to do something to please you."
"Good boy," said Ryder pleased. "Now you're talking common sense." He turned to Shirley, who was getting ready to make her departure: "Well, Miss Green, we may consider the matter settled. You undertake the work at the price I named and finish it as soon as you can. Of course, you will have to consult me a good deal as you go along, so I think it would be better for you to come and stay here while the work is progressing. Mrs. Ryder can give you a suite of rooms to yourself, where you will be undisturbed and you will have all your material close at hand. What do you say?"
Shirley was silent for a moment. She looked first at Ryder and then at his son, and from them her glance went to the little drawer on the left-hand side of the desk. Then she said quietly:
"As you think best, Mr. Ryder. I am quite willing to do the work here."
Ryder, Sr., escorted her to the top of the landing and watched her as she passed down the grand staircase, ushered by the gorgeously uniformed flunkies, to the front door and the street. _