Chapter XXIX

Helped tremendously by the moratorium, the sagging market had ceased sagging, and some stocks were even beginning to recover. This was true for practically every line save those lines in which Francis owned and which Regan was bearing. He continued bearing and making them reluctantly fall, and he noted with joy the huge blocks of Tampico Petroleum which were being dumped obviously by no other person than Francis.

‘Now’s the time,’ Regan informed his bear conspirators. ‘Play her coming and going. It’s a double ruff. Remember the list I gave you. Sell these, and sell short. For them there is no bottom. As for all the rest, buy and buy now, and deliver all that you sold. You can’t lose, you see, and by continuing to hammer the list you’ll make a double killing.’

‘How about yourself?’ one of his bear crowd queried.

‘I’ve nothing to buy,’ came the answer. ‘That will show you how square I have been in my tip, and how confident I am. I haven’t sold a share outside the list, so I have nothing to deliver. I am still selling short and hammering down the list, and the list only. There’s my killing, and you can share in it by as much as you continue to sell short.’

‘There you are!’ Bascom, in despair in his private office, cried to Francis at ten-thirty. ‘Here’s the whole market rising, except your lines. Regan’s out for blood. I never dreamed he could show such strength. We can’t stand this. We’re finished. We’re smashed now – you, me, all of us – everything.’

Never had Francis been cooler. Since all was lost, why worry? was his attitude; and, a mere layman in the game, he caught a glimpse of possibilities that were veiled to Bascom who too thoroughly knew too much about the game.

‘Take it easy,’ Francis counseled, his new vision assuming form and substance with each tick of a second. ‘Let’s have a smoke and talk it over for a few minutes.’

Bascom made a gesture of infinite impatience.

‘But wait,’ Francis urged. ‘Stop! Look! Listen! I’m finished, you say?’

His broker nodded.

‘You’re finished?’

Again the nod.

‘Which means that we’re busted, flat busted,’ Francis went on to the exposition of his new idea. ‘Now it is perfectly clear, then, to your mind and mine, that a man can never be worse than a complete, perfect, hundred-percent., entire, total bust.’

‘We’re wasting valuable time,’ Bascom protested as he nodded affirmation.

‘Not if we’re busted as completely as you’ve agreed we are,’ smiled Francis. ‘Being thoroughly busted, time, sales, purchases, nothing can be of any value to us. Values have ceased, don’t you see.’

‘Go on, what is it?’ Bascom said, with the momentarily assumed patience of abject despair. ‘I’m busted higher than a kite now, and, as you say, they can’t bust me any higher.’

‘Now you get the idea!’ Francis jubilated. ‘You’re a member of the Exchange. Then go ahead, sell or buy, do anything your and my merry hearts decide. We can’t lose. Anything from zero always leaves zero. We’ve shot all we’ve got, and more. Let’s shoot what we haven’t got.’

Bascom still struggled feebly to protest, but Francis beat him down with a final:

‘Remember, anything from zero leaves zero.’

And for the next hour, as in a nightmare, no longer a free agent, Bascom yielded to Francis’ will in the maddest stock adventure of his life.

‘Oh, well,’ Francis laughed at half-past eleven, ‘we might as well quit now. But remember, we’re no worse off than we were an hour ago. We were zero then. We’re zero now. You can hang up the auctioneer’s flag any time now.’

Bascom, heavily and wearily taking down the receiver, was about to transmit the orders that would stop the battle by acknowledgment of unconditional defeat, when the door opened and through it came the familiar ring of a pirate stave that made Francis flash his hand out in peremptory stoppage of his broker’s arm.

‘Stop!’ Francis cried. ‘Listen!’

And they listened to the song preceding the singer:

 

‘Back to back against the mainmast,

Held at bay the entire crew.’

 

As Henry swaggered in, carrying a huge and different suit-case, Francis joined with him in the stave.

‘What’s doing?’ Bascom queried of Charley Tippery, who, still in evening dress, looked very jaded and worn from his exertions.

From his breast pocket he drew and passed over three certified checks that totaled eighteen hundred thousand dollars. Bascom shook his head sadly.

‘Too late,’ he said. ‘That’s only a drop in the bucket. Put them back in your pocket. It would be only throwing them away.’

‘But wait,’ Charley Tippery cried, taking the suit-case from his singing companion and proceeding to open it. ‘Maybe that will help.’

‘That’ consisted of a great mass of orderly bundles of gold bonds and gilt edge securities.

‘How much is it?’ Bascom gasped, his courage springing up like wild-fire.

But Francis, overcome by the sight of such plethora of ammunition, ceased singing to gasp. And both he and Bascom gasped again when Henry drew from his inside pocket a bundle of a dozen certified checks. They could only stare at the prodigious sum, for each was written for a million dollars.

‘And plenty more where that came from,’ Henry announced airily. ‘All you have to do is say the word, Francis, and we’ll knock this bear gang to smithereens. Now suppose you get busy. The rumors are around everywhere that you’re gone and done for. Pitch in and show them, that’s all. Bust every last one of them that jumped you. Shake ‘m down to their gold watches and the fillings out of their teeth.’

‘You found old Sir Henry’s treasure after all,’ Francis congratulated.

‘No,’ Henry shook his head. ‘That represents part of the old Maya treasure – about a third of it. We’ve got another third down with Enrico Solano, and the last third’s safe right here in the Jewelers and Traders’ National Bank. Say, I’ve got news for you when you’re ready to listen.’

And Francis was quickly ready. Bascom knew even better than he what was to be done, and was already giving his orders to his staff over the telephone buying orders of such prodigious size that all of Regan’s fortune would not enable him to deliver what he had sold short. ‘Torres is dead,’ Henry told him.

‘Hurrah!’ was Francis’ way of receiving it.

‘Died like a rat in a trap. I saw his head sticking out. It wasn’t pretty. And the Jefe’s dead. And… and somebody else is dead…’

‘Not Leoncia!’ Francis cried out.

Henry shook his head.

‘Someone of the Solanos – old Enrico?’

‘No; your wife, Mrs. Morgan. Torres shot her, deliberately shot her. I was beside her when she fell. Now hold on, I’ve got other news. Leoncia’s right there in that other office, and she’s waiting for you to come to her. Can’t you wait till I’m through? I’ve got more news that will give you the right steer before you go in to her. Why, hell’s bells, if I were a certain Chinaman that I know, I’d make you pay me a million for all the information I’m giving you for nothing.’

‘Shoot – what is it?’ Francis demanded impatiently.

‘Good news, of course, unadulterated good news. Best news you ever heard. I now don’t laugh, or knock my block off for the good news is that I’ve got a sister.’

‘What of it?’ was Francis’ brusque response. ‘I always knew you had sisters in England.’

‘But you don’t get me,’ Henry dragged on. ‘This is a perfectly brand new sister, all grown up, and the most beautiful woman you ever laid eyes on.’

‘And what of it?’ growled Francis. ‘That may be good news for you, but I don’t see how it affects me.’

‘Ah, now we’re coming to it,’ Henry grinned. ‘You’re going to marry her. I give you my full permission…’

‘Not if she were ten times your sister, nor if she were ten times as beautiful,’ Francis broke in. ‘The woman doesn’t exist I’d marry.’

‘Just the same, Francis boy, you’re going to marry this one. I know it. I feel it in my bones. I’d bet on it.’

‘I’ll bet you a thousand I don’t.’

‘Aw, go on and make it a real bet,’ Henry drawled. ‘Any amount you want.’

‘Done, then, for a thousand and fifty dollars. Now go right into the office there and take a look at her.’

‘She’s with Leoncia?’

‘Nope; she’s by herself.’

‘I thought you said Leoncia was in there.’

‘So I did, so I did. And so Leoncia is in there. And she isn’t with another soul, and she’s waiting to talk with you.’

By this time Francis was growing peevish.

‘What are you stringing me for?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t make head nor tale of your foolery. One moment it’s your brand new sister in there, and the next moment it’s your wife.’

‘Who said I ever had a wife?’ Henry came back.

‘I give up!’ Francis cried. ‘I’m going on in and see Leoncia. I’ll talk with you later on when you’re back in your right mind.’

He started for the door, but was stopped by Henry.

‘Just a second more, Francis, and I’m done,’ he said. ‘I want to give you that steer. I am not married. There is only one woman waiting for you in there. That one woman is my sister. Also is she Leoncia.’

It required a dazed half minute for Francis to get it clearly into his head. Again, and in a rush, he was starting for the door, when Henry stopped him.

‘Do I win?’ queried Henry.

But Francis shook him off, dashed through the door, and slammed it after him.