Part 40 (1/2)

I rose. ”Good,” said I. ”I'm ready.”

”Wait until the other police get here,” advised Crawford.

”If the mob is in the temper you describe,” said I, ”the less that's done to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of danger.”

The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my vanity.

”I'll go with you,” said Joe, starting up from his stupor.

”No,” I replied. ”You and the other fellows can take the underground route, if it's necessary.”

”It won't be necessary,” put in the inspector. ”As soon as I'm rid of you and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets.” He went to the door.

”Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men.”

Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my private keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. Then I sallied forth.

I had always had a ravenous appet.i.te for excitement, and I had been in many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric, just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd, and good-naturedly jostling and pus.h.i.+ng to create distraction. Without haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands, quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur turned the machine.

”Go slow,” I called to him. ”You might hurt somebody.”

But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, bound up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about.

I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the plain-clothes policeman.

”Where are you going?” I shouted.

”You'll find out when we arrive,” he shouted back, grinning.

I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed we were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anch.o.r.ed. As we dashed on to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and in plain clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. ”We are here to help you to your yacht,” he explained. ”You wouldn't be safe anywhere in New York--no more would the place that harbored you.”

He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. Four detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. ”Go ahead,”

said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders.

”We are in the hands of our guests,” said I. ”Let them have their way.”

We steamed down the bay and out to sea.

From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled:

”Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged the whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war.” And they turned eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. ”You have the genius for finance and industry. Save us!”

If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the ”genius for finance and industry” responded. When they had done, when their program was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three richest men in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus after Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and industry of the nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more expensive and more luxurious army of their parasites.

The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it away.

I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was, ”Man, the fool of the farce.” Truly, the G.o.ds must have created us for their amus.e.m.e.nt; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some such screaming comedy as was that. It ”makes the fancy chuckle, while the heart doth ache.”

x.x.xVI. ”BLACK MATT'S” TRIUMPH