Black Cat Weekly #2

THE MYSTERY OF THE TRUST BUILDER, by Frank Lovell Nelson-1

THE MYSTERY OF THE TRUST BUILDER, by Frank Lovell NelsonWHEN I took up my residence with Carlton Clarke, telepathic detective, I admit it was with certain misgivings. Imagine living with a man who, in case you were out the night before, could tell you, without question, where and what you had been had been doing. Surely I should have to sacrifice both privacy and individuality. A few weeks, however, taught me that my fears were groundless. If Clarke employed his wonderful powers in my case, it was only in anticipating my wants.

We had been housemates but a short time when I discovered that his clientele already was a large one and drawn from widely different circles. What their troubles were or in what manner Clarke was able to aid them, I unable to guess. Once, when I suspect my mind was dwelling on the mystery with rather a morbid interest, Clarke turned to me and said:

“These cases are too commonplace to interest you. Wait until we have something big and I will take you into my confidence. By the way, I expect a client this evening who ought to be worthwhile. He is the head of one of the best known stock brokerage houses in the city, and in his note he says he hopes I may be able to solve a mystery affecting some of the greatest corporate interests of the country.”

* * * *

During the evening, a severe electrical storm broke over the city. As Carke did not expect his caller until half after eight, I retired to my room to snatch an extra hour for some work I had in hand. Soon my typewriter was clattering away to the accompanyment of the artillery of the heavens. I could hear Clarke nervously pacing the library. Without, the lightning kept up one continuous flash. A bolt finally struck so near that the flash and the report seemed to come almost at the same instant. This was too much for my nerves, and I decided that work was out of the question.

“It’s a fierce night out. I’m afraid your man will not come,” I suggested to Clarke, going to the door.

Clarke stopped his restless march. “I had begun to think so myself,” he said, “but if I am not mistaken, he is just now turning into Chestnut Street at Main.”

As well as I knew Clarke, and with my faith in his wonderful powers, this was a trifle beyond my comprehension. In less than five minutes, however, we heard a carriage drive up to the entrance. I rushed to the window and saw the coachman covering a steaming pair of handsome black horses with their rubber blankets.

“I suppose you scarcely expected me such a night as this, Mr. Clarke,” said our caller, as he laid off his raincoat and top hat. “I assure you, my coming serves to show that the matter is of great importance. I am Henry A. Bolton of the firm of Bolton & Co. You doubtless had my note this afternoon. I was referred to you by a friend, who tells me that have had considerable success in confldentlal cases.”

I took Mr. Bolton’s hat and coat, and when I returned from stowing them away in the reception hall, I had my first opportunity to make a full survey of his person.

Our visitor was evidently a man of affairs. He was rotund to the verge of corpulence. A keen gray eye—a money eye, if there is such a distinct orb—looked straight at me. His cheeks glowed under a healthy tan, and his white hair, mustache, and neatly trimmed imperial-style beard gave him something of a military bearing. For the rest, he was a member of the Mystic Shrine—witness the handsome seal on his heavy gold watch chain; he was a golf enthusiast—witness the tan and the callouses on his otherwise white palms; and his tailor was the best in the city.

When my confrère had set out the generally prescribed antidotes for a wet night and our cigars were going well, Clarke asked Mr. Bolton for an explanation of his note and visit.

“Let us have the story, Mr. Bolton,” he said, “and I will question you as is necessary.”

“Well,” began Bolton, “as you perhaps know, I am the senior member of the stock brokerage firm of Bolton & Co. Possibly you do not know the position my firm holds in the financial world, for our work is confidential in the extreme. To the world at large, we are members of the principal exchanges both here and in the the east, doing general stock brokerage with a branch house in New York and private telegraph service. As a matter of fact, though, and I tell it to you in confidence, which I am assured by my friend you will not betray, our actual business is organizing trusts.”

I will say by way of parenthesis that the business deals of Bolton & Co. have since become so well known to the world through the investigations of the Department of Commerce and Labor that I am not violating this confidence in the course of this narrative.

“We are closely affiliated with the well known firm of P. J. Forgan & Co., of New York,” continued Mr. Bolton. “Most of the combinations of capital which the house of Forgan has backed openly have in reality had their inception in our office. I may say, without egotism, that I am the father of the modern trust idea, for I had it worked out in detail twenty-five years ago.

“Recently, our most fortunate ventures have been in cornering the manufacture of minor articles which are, however, important necessities in the household economy. There was the lamp chimney trust, the potato masher trust, the can-opener and corkscrew trusts, and many others which I might mention, all of which were ideas of mine, and were organised in our office. We have also had a hand in practically all of the better known combinations of capital within the last half dozen years.

“I am telling you this, not in a boastful way, but because it is necessary that you should have a thorough understanding of the details of our business, and because it has an important bearing, I believe, on what is to follow.

“Naturally, we receive a large daily mail packet from our house in New York, which, as you doubtless know, is in charge of James H. Hazen, my son-in-law. The mail invariably includes a daily report of the business done by the New York house. I give this mail my personal attention.

“It was about six months ago that I first noticed something peculiar in this department of our business. One day, in going through the New York mail, I observed an error in the spelling of some common word in the daily report. It rather grated on me, and I took my pen and corrected It. As I turned the sheet over upon the blotter, my eye was attracted by a sentence lightly written in pencil on the back. The hand was the merest childish scrawl, and the substance so utterly foolish that I paid no attention to it. I thought it likely that one of the children of the clerk whose duty it was to write up the report had been in the office scribbling on the blanks. Here is the report—”

Mr. Bolton took a document from an imposing pocketbook and laid it upon the table. We read upon it the following sentence:

I see two black cats on the backyard fence.

“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Bolton after Clark had studied the scrawl for a few minutes.

“Evidently a disguised hand,” answered Clarke. “This new system of vertical writing is the easiest penmanship imaginable under which to hide a characteristic penmanship. But go on. This certainly is not sufficient excuse for calling in an expert.”

“Certainly not,” answered Bolton “I should have thought nothing of this had it not been for the events which followed. I do not say that I immediately connected these event with this scrawl, but you will see how I was led to this inference as I proceed.

“At the time this report reached me, we had just concluded with the house of Forgan & Co. an arrangement to buy up all of the broom factories in the country and organise them into a trust. The broom, as you know, is an insignificant article, but it is found in every home in America. Our plans were going nicely. We had every factory in the country save one. This one, hewever, had an output equal to the combined output of all the others, and its purchase was an absolutely necessary to our plans.

“When this daily report came, we were just opening negotiations for its purchase with every prospect of success. The day after the receipt of the report, I met the owners, and their terms nearly knocked me into a heap. Nothing less than the presidency of the trust, a majority of the board of directors, and 51 percent of the stock! If you know anything about business, you know that these terms were impossible. No amount of persuasion would shake them or disclose their reasons, and the upshot was that we gave up the project, the house of Bolton & Co. lost more money than I care to think about, and my credit with Forgan & Co. was seriously damaged.

“A few weeks afterward, we essayed the launching of the souvenir postal card trust. It may surprise you when I tell you that the business done in souvenir postal cards in this country runs far up into the millions annually. I had watched the progress of the fad and thought I saw a chance for a pretty speculation. We bought up a few small houses as a basis, but the business was practically controlled by the big printing firm of Hollawell & Eubank, whose stock passes on the curb. The stock had been hovering around par, and I had given my brokers orders to buy the minute it dropped below 99. We had picked up but a small block of shares at that figure, when one morning, in looking over the mail. I saw another notation on on the back of the daily report. Here it is—”

We looked at the paper which he held out and read in the same chlidish hand:

Two boys on the grass playing mumbledypeg.

“What happened?” queried Clarke.

“Enough,” answered Bolton. “The next day H. & E. jumped to 110 under feverish buying. The next to 115, the next to 135, the next to 150. In a week, a hitherto neglected stock could not be had at 200. The souvenir postal card trust was still-born. Our money loss was not great, but our loss in prestige was considerable.

“But it is useless to multiply cases. To epitomise, when New York wrote ‘Two geese are in the pond,’ the safety pin trust went under. When ‘A fox ate two chickens’ appeared, the brick trust failed with great loss to Bolton & Co. This brings it down to yesterday, when this inscription appeared,” and Bolton laid a third report before us.

The line was:

Cataline et forte dux.

“Now, Mr. Clarke—and Mr. Sexton, I may add, as you seem to be equally interested—I have given you a pretty full account of the case. I can never tell you the worry it has caused me. The blows delivered my house recently have been heavy, and many times I have seen financial ruin staring me in the face. If you can explain this mystery and put a stop to these occurrences, you may save me from the bankruptcy court, which, with me, means a suicide’s grave.”

“Let me ask you first, Mr. Bolton,” said Clarke, “if any similar notations have appeared on any paper which you send daily to your New York office?”

“I thought you would ask that, and I am prepared for you. Some months ago my son-in-law, Mr. Hazen, complained that our daily confirmation of wired messages was being defaced and suggested, rather sarcastically, that we keep children out of our office. As soon as my suspicions began to take form, I asked him to send me all of the daily confirmations which contained anything in any manner out of the ordinary. I have made a list of these sentences, and here they are.

Three cats eating catnip.

If a farmer sold three chickens for cabbage.

The feathers of sixty ducks will stuff.

“That is the list, and if you can make anything out of such ridiculous nonsense, you are smarter than I am, and that’s considerable of an admission for Henry Bolton to make to any man.”