Part 22 (2/2)
”But you want to go to her,” she persisted. ”I am only the alternative.”
He looked her full in the eyes.
”Miss Van Brock, what is it you want me to say? What can I say more than I said a moment ago--that you are the truest friend a man ever had?”
The answering look out of the brown eyes was age-old in its infinite wisdom.
”How little you men know when you think you know the most,” she said half-musingly; then she broke off abruptly. ”Let us talk about something else. If Major Guilford is wrecking the railroad, why is he spending so much money on improvements? Have you thought to ask yourself that question?”
”A good many times,” he admitted, following her promptly back to first principles.
”And you have not found the answer?”
”Not one that fully satisfies me--no.”
”I've found one.”
”Intuitively?” he smiled.
”No; it's pure logic, this time. Do you remember showing me a letter that Mr. Hunnicott wrote you just before the explosion--a letter in which he repeated a bit of gossip about Mr. Semple Falkland and his mysterious visit to Gaston?”
”Yes, I remember it.”
”Do you know who Mr. Falkland is?”
”Who doesn't?” he queried. ”He has half of Wall Street in his clientele.”
”Yes; but particularly he is the advisory counsel of the Plantagould System. Ever since you showed me that letter I have been trying to account for his presence in Gaston on the day before Judge MacFarlane's spring term of court. I should never have found out but for Mrs. Brentwood.”
”Mrs. Brentwood!”
Miss Van Brock nodded.
”Yes; the mother of my--of the young person for whom I am the alternative, is in a peck of trouble; I quote her _verbatim_. She and her two daughters hold some three thousand shares of Western Pacific stock. It was purchased at fifty-seven, and it is now down to twenty-one.”
”Twenty and a quarter to-day,” Kent corrected.
”Never mind the fractions. The mother of the incomparable--Penelope, has heard that I am a famous business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs.
Hetty Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter from a New York broker offering her a fraction more than the market price for her three thousand shares of Western Pacific.”
”Well?” said Kent.
”Meaning what did I do? I did what you did not do--what you are not doing even now; I put two and two together in the twinkling of a bedstaff. Why should a New York broker be picking up outlying Western Pacific at a fraction more than the market when the stock is sinking every day? I was curious enough to pa.s.s the 'why' along to a friend of mine in Wall Street.”
”Of course he told you all about it,” said Kent, incredulously.
”He told me what I needed to know. The broker in question is a Plantagould man.”
<script>