The Complete Simon Iff (37 page)

"And a little touch of spite!"

"Merely the Malic Acid in the Apple of Love!"

Geoffrey Travis, coming into the room, heard the last three words.

"Apple of Love," he cried, "always the same old theme. Oh, you women, you women!"

***

*
Born and raised in the "Steel City" (and Pittsburgh was spelled without the "h" in Crowley's day) I suppose I should be offended. - G.M.Kelly

"I am always bothering you," murmured Miss Mollie Madison, apologetically.

"You are," admitted Simon Iff; "but I suppose I am old enough to like it."

It is possible that he might have tolerated her even had he been young. There was never hair so plentiful, so irrepressible, or so golden red as hers; and it framed a face warm, creamy flushed, round and innocent and laughing as a Greuze, with an impudent nose, and a mouth, perpetually pouting, which was redder even than the hair. Her body was slim and snakelike, every gesture sinuous and seductive. And she had no trace of self-consciousness or vanity. She never put a price upon herself, but gave freely as a queen should do.

"You frequently impress me as being a human being," continued the mystic; "and real human beings never really bother me. What is it this time?"

"It's a very small matter, Cephas," which was her pet name for Simon. "I had a dear friend at Vassar, Agnes Mills, and her mother's in trouble, and I thought you would advise her."

"All right," said Simon, resignedly, "but I shall be very insulted if it isn't the Eye of an Indian Idol, at the very least."

"I'm afraid it's a perfectly ordinary business matter; only she says she can't trust any one but a...."

"A stranger," suggested Simon, half playfully. But Mollie looked daggers at him. She never forgot the President in her ancestry.

"Another breach of the Monroe Doctrine?" he smiled, almost impudently.

She decided to ignore him. She had frequently found it safer.

"Mrs. Mills is waiting downstairs," she said, as stiffly as so little and luscious a little lady could be expected to do.

He rang down to tell the janitor to ask her to come up.

"Why on earth didn't you bring her up with you? You know, or you ought to know by now, that I never say no to a Distressed Widow."

"How did you know she was a widow?"

"Why wouldn't she be going to her husband for advice?"

"Oh, they might be separated or divorced."

"Dear me, no! If there had been any scandal about it, you would have told me, first thing!"

It was perhaps lucky for Simon Iff that the curriculum at Vassar had included a special course in training young ladies not to throw anything at anybody.

Mrs. Mills entered the room. She was the kind of individual who doesn't matter to anybody. She had everything in a mild form. Simon Iff was reminded of Mrs. Nickleby, but one without enough imagination to be flustered over The Gentleman Next Door. He had to use all his tact and acumen to disinter her story from the graveyard of General Reminiscences.

Rather than inflict this excellent lady upon others, Simon decided to champion her cause. The circumstances were thus inscribed by Mollie from dictation (aside) whenever he extricated what appeared to be a relevant fact.

She had lost her poor husband in 1895. His sole important asset had been the Ruddigore Copper Mine near Glanders, Montana, of the stock of which he had held 51 per cent. The mine was a paying proposition, though never a bonanza. The average yearly dividend - as Iff found on reference to Mollie - had been 1¼ per cent. This was good income for Mrs. Mills and Agnes, the face value of the stock being over 400,000 dollars. Her trustee, Mr. Samuel Grass, had no interest in the mine. The active managers were Mr. Kuhn and Mr. Arnheim; they held nearly the whole balance of the stock between them. Both men were enormously wealthy, and extremely competent in business. Kuhn, in particular, was noted for his sly secretive methods. He was called "Pussy" on the Street. Arnheim was of a more obvious type; he was associated with Kuhn in many great enterprises. Next to Paul Powys, there was no financier in New York City so dreaded as Theophilus Kuhn; and there had been great enmity between them. With Arnheim's assistance Kuhn stood a fair chance of pulling down the great little Welshman; indeed, he had always held his own, and come out of many a battle with not too unfavourable a draw. But Powys was master of a power not his own; he represented the conservative element, and could always rally the forces of sanity to his banner.

The manager of the mine was a Scotsman named Craig, a dear friend and protégé of the late Mills. Agnes was informally engaged to be married to him. He was a man of thirty-five, exceptionally shrewd and competent, his character simple, honest and affectionate.

Neither Arnheim nor Kuhn had taken any very active interest in the mine; it was a very small matter compared with their gigantic interests elsewhere. Kuhn's nephew Caspar had the postion of chief engineer, but it was admittedly a probation to train him for more important work. Mills, on his deathbed, had implored his wife never to part with her control of the mine, and never to allow the supersession of Craig.

Such were the disjointed avowals of the discursive lady, and this last was the point of her visit. For she was sorely tempted to sell her interest.

The last annual report, conceived in a more concise style than that of Mrs. Mills, threw considerable light upon this point. No dividend had been declared. Misfortune after misfortune had fallen upon the mine.

Miss Mollie Madison, knowing Simon Iff's little ways, had supplemented this with a report obtained from Craig, through Agnes, of the events at Glanders.

The first incident had been a fall of rock in Gallery 13 - the deepest level - which had in consequence become flooded. Mr. Caspar Kuhn had attacked the problem with characteristic skill and energy, but his pumps had failed again and again. The machinery had jammed and broken. Kuhn had suspected malicious interference on the part of one of his men, and discharged him. His mates had taken offence at this action, and declared a strike.

Mr. Kuhn, senior, had travelled from New York to investigate conditions, and his tact had succeeded in composing the quarrel; but work had hardly recommenced when a gang of irreconcilables had waylaid the engineer, and beaten him so seriously that he was confined to his bed for ten days.

Three days after his return to work, the mine had been deliberately dynamited, wrecking the main shaft. Experts reported that three months at least would be required before another ounce of ore could be extracted.

The police were entirely at a loss to explain the conditions. Craig had shared in the hatred aroused by young Kuhn's first action, for he had heartily supported his engineer. On two occasions he had been shot at. Both he and Caspar offered their resignations; but Mrs. Mills, faithful to her husband's dying wish, had refused to accept Craig's suggestion, and of course included Kuhn in this reply. He, however, had insisted, and left for another position procured for him by his uncle. He told Craig frankly that he valued his skin. His ill-luck had not ended there, however. Before he had been a week in his new job he had been set upon in the dark near his house, as he returned from dinner with the manager, by a dozen men. But this time Mr. Caspar Kuhn was armed; he put a bullet through the brain of one of his assailants. This affair was wrapped in absolute mystery; not a trace of motive could be discovered, and practically the whole camp produced alibis which were at least plausible. Kuhn, however, developed a severe attack of cold feet, and decided to take a holiday in Europe.

The annual report dated from the time of the first assault on Casper Kuhn. It therefore made no mention of the amazing developments of the following month.

A perfectly unknown individual named Ransome had appeared with what purported to be a first mortgage on the property. He alleged fraud, duress, and various other illegalities against Mills. If his claim were well-founded, the mine was his.

Mrs. Mills had been advised by her trustee that the man was an ignorant crook, probably in the hands of some clever shyster. No court would consider the case for ten minutes. Grass had taken the title-deeds and other necessary papers from his safe deposit vault, intending to hand them to his attorney. That night his house was burgled, and the papers, among other things, stolen.

When Ransome appeared in court, the company's attorney asked for an adjournment, hoping that time would permit him to recover the papers.

Ransome asked for an interim injunction to prevent the operation of the mine pending decision of the ownership. Having shown a prima facie case, this was granted. In fact, the company preferred not to oppose it, lest something should transpire which might disclose the serious nature of their loss. He might, for all they knew, coolly challenge their locus standi.

Three days later, Ransome's rooms, which were in an old-fashioned house in the Tenderloin, were entered, and his papers destroyed in the fire which he had left burning while he went out for dinner. Experts had however been able to recover a great deal from the burnt sheets, and Ransome's lawyer had prudently caused certified copies to be made.

Mrs. Mills had been very much distressed by the harsh attitude of Mr. Arnheim, who declared furiously that he had no time to be mixed up in so petty an affair, with its eternal conferences. He washed his hands of the matter, and proceeded to throw his stock on the market. It had stood at 20 or thereabouts for a long while; it now fell to 3¼, with no buyers.

Mr. Kuhn had however acted with loyalty and magnanimity. He secretly purchased Arnheim's stock, and made it over to Mrs. Mills as a Christmas present. He had taken an entirely unexpected attitude with regard to Ransome, proclaiming that he would spend his last dollar to fight the case. It was not the value of his share in the mine, he declared wrathfully; but it was worth twenty millions to him to prevent any person of undesirable ancestry thinking that he could put one over on Theophilus Kuhn.

Arnheim was furious. He openly stated his belief that Kuhn had some 'inside dope', and had bought his stock for the rise. Kuhn calmly displayed the transfer to Mrs. Mills. Arnheim left Kuhn's office in a rage. The friendly collaboration of twenty years was broken.

Nor did he stop there. He withdrew from an important deal in which he had been associated with Kuhn, and created a temporary panic in that market. He was next heard of as engineering a colossal combine in copper, in the course of which he bought up a dozen mines in the immediate neighborhood of the Ruddigore. Kuhn remained perfectly impassive, hardly troubling himself to laugh at his former friend. The general opinion on the street was that Arnheim was more than a little crazy.

Meanwhile Ransome seemed to be in a fair way to prove his claim to the mine. Nothing could save Kuhn and Mrs. Mills but the recovery of the stolen papers. The company had been obliged to declare the loss, and Kuhn, his back to the wall, had offered a reward not much less than the full value.

Mrs. Mills was distressed beyond measure by all this commotion. She had always accepted the mine as a fact in nature, and supposed that the periodic receipt of a check for dividends was a phenomenon comparable to the recurrence of Spring. It might be a little more or a little less, just as Spring might be genial or severe; but it was bound to come. She had practically no income except that from the mine, and she had saved no money. She began to feel anxious, for the mine was closed up under the injunction, and her bank balance sank weekly. Arnheim offered to buy her interest at the 3¼ which Kuhn had paid for his. She was tempted.

Kuhn came to the rescue with a check for a year's income recokoned at 2 per cent. Hold on, said he; this luck can't last for ever. The mine's good; once we're rid of Ransome, I'll put in more capital and new machinery, and we'll have her paying ten percent before we're five years older. And he dictated a sarcastic telegram in reply to Arnheim's offer.

Another year had nearly elapsed. Despite Kuhn's generous kindness, she was horribly worried. There was a constant stream of legal papers, which she did not in the least comprehend, to be signed with formalities as to witnesses and notaries public which irritated her almost to madness. Her whole life was disturbed; she lost her sleep; at last she began to try to escape, and sounded Kuhn as to the possibility of selling her interest. Kuhn told her that the stock was waste paper, so far as the market was concerned; she had to hold on, whether she liked it or not.

Arnheim probably had news of her state of mind; he telegraphed a new offer. He would pay 5.

Mrs. Mills took the wire up to Kuhn's office. "Do let me accept," she said pitifully. "I'm so tired of all this. I could get a government annuity, couldn't I?"

"If you give way," said Kuhn, "I'll never speak to you again. Think of Agnes! You would only get two thousand dollars a year at the most, and it would cease with your life. Agnes would have to marry a rich man instead of Craig. You hold on! I'll see you through! May I wire for you? Just take this telegram, Jenks. Arnheim, Astor House, Butte, Montana. I have just offered to take over Mrs. Mills' interests in the Ruddigore Mine at par. Theophilus Kuhn. How's that, Mrs. Mills?"

"What does it mean exactly?"

"It means that I'm offering you four hundred thousand odd dollars instead of Arnheim's twenty thousand odd."

"You don't really mean that?"

"I never say anything unless I mean it. But don't you do it! That stock's worth more than par with M. E., me, Theophilus Kuhn, behind it."

The poor lady had departed in absolute distraction, and laid the matter before Agnes. To her amazement, the girl had flown into a rage, and delivered an oration, rivalling Mark Antony's, on her father's dying wishes. But the trustee, who was present, urged her to sell. "It's a marvellous offer," he cried, "Utterly Quixotic. Why, the mine may not belong to you at all!"

"And what I think," concluded Mrs. Mills, very impressively, in a stage whisper, having explained that the above interview represented the situation to date, "is that Mr. Kuhn wants Agnes!"