The Lost Prince (11 page)

“You may ask.”

“Are you Jewish, Mr. Honeycutt?”

Will Honeycutt paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on the Morgan man without blinking, nowhere near intimidation or panic. And looking back on it later, Eleanor concluded that this was his supreme moment, and if one wished to find the exact instant in which this inexperienced apprentice rose to the demands of the adventure to which he had been called, this was it. “It would seem to me,” Will Honeycutt said, again slowly and calmly, looking around the room, at Eleanor and the Loeb man, “that we are all red-blooded American capitalists here.” And the
Morgan man, looking apoplectic, as if he might explode, turned and walked out of the room. Eleanor stood back and watched in something like amazement. Seeing her colleague in this new persona had an unexpected effect on her. It was only later that she realized the powerful impact on her. She was being taken care of.

The next offer was three hundred fifty, well above what Will had just read on the ticker tape. The offer was no longer from the Morgans and for only one-half the shares. “This is going wild. We must take it,” Will Honeycutt said emphatically. “I do not know a lot about these kinds of panics, but I do know that when the bubble bursts it does so suddenly and is bound to disappear soon. Three fifty is a huge increase. It would be wise to act.” There was now a calm urgency in his voice, again, no panic, just a calm urgency.

“We are holding at five hundred, Mr. Honeycutt,” Eleanor said.

What neither Eleanor nor Will Honeycutt had any way of knowing until later was that they and the whole investment world had been swept up in a huge competition between the forces of Edward Henry Harriman, head of the Union Pacific Railroad, who was also looking for a road which could connect his company to Chicago, and the house of J. P. Morgan. Harriman was making a bid to buy up enough shares to control the railroad, and Morgan was determined not to let that happen. It was a power struggle between two industrial giants, one totally out of proportion to the worth of the railroad itself. Because so many individuals and houses, seeing the price rise out of control, were short-selling and about to lose it all, the fierce competition began to envelop the whole market and consequently the whole financial system of the country. J. P. Morgan had caused it. Sometimes wise and sometimes impulsive, the great financier playing the part of the dual-natured Zeus on the top of Mount Olympus was now acting purely on ego, determined not to be bettered by any rival, no matter the stakes. And from southern France he had issued the fateful order to his underlings in New York, “Buy at any price.”

The entire market was surging out of control, always on the brink of ruinous free-fall, and yet the offers came rolling in. Brokers all over the street thought they had to obtain Northern Pacific shares to protect themselves. The price shot up ever higher and higher, and T. Williams Honeycutt and the Hyperion Fund held tight. By two o’clock that afternoon, with pandemonium reigning, and offers flying in from all corners, they
had received many offers at well over five hundred. “Send for the Morgan man,” Will said calmly, now fully in charge.

With couriers dashing into the Loeb offices Eleanor watched in awed silence and then said to her partner, “You see why we needed to be here in person.”

“I do.” He barely had time to respond as the Morgan man rushed into the room, this time with a totally different demeanor, this time with an unmistakable look of panic in his eyes.

“We’ll meet your request,” Will Honeycutt said bluntly.

“At what price?” the man said.

“At the promised five hundred. But we have offers for a good deal more than that. And the offers keep climbing by the minute.” Even as they spoke a messenger entered the room and laid in his hand an offer for half the shares at seven hundred fifty. By the end of the day, before the collapse, offers would rise above one thousand dollars a share.

“We will match any offer you have,” the Morgan man said, eyeing the paper. “For the full number of shares.”

“There will be no need for that,” Will Honeycutt said without emotion, raising himself to his full five feet nine inches and looking calmly at the man from the House of Morgan. “I told you we would sell at five hundred,” he said. “We will sell at five hundred.” With a firm, confident handshake from the seller’s side, the deal was struck and the new persona of T. Williams Honeycutt, experienced fund manager, was firmly established.

“You did magnificently,” Eleanor said to her young partner as they left the offices of Loeb, quite forgetting her intention to replace him. There was a clearly evident admiration in her voice. “I cannot believe how calm you were.”

“I did what needed to be done,” he said, and once again Eleanor was surprised by his poise.

“Did your friend Democritus appear to you?” she said with a touch of whimsy in her voice.

“No, not this time,” Will said with total seriousness. “This time it was Alexander Hamilton.”

“Alexander Hamilton!” Eleanor exclaimed. “How is that?”

“Alexander Hamilton came to me in a dream, so I began talking to him, writing down our conversation. It turns out that he was the first treasurer of the United States, something I had totally forgotten. He was most helpful.”

Eleanor could only shake her head in amazement.
Whatever works,
she heard the pragmatic William James saying in her ear. “This has been a most extraordinary day,” she said, revealing a rush of exuberance. “You, Mr. Honeycutt, have handled yourself with great aplomb, coached by Mr. Hamilton or not. We shall retire to my hotel room to celebrate.”

A CELEBRATION

T
he mood was ecstatic. “Living on the very edge!” Eleanor exclaimed. “Absolutely magnificent,” she reiterated as they were halfway through a ten-year-old bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild. She had her feet up on the coffee table in front of her and had in her hand a thin, discreet Cuban cigar Will had just given her. “But I do not wish to do it often.” She had been impressed beyond words by Will Honeycutt and by her own calm. With his strength at her side there in the high-stakes game of powerful men, she felt exhilarated and fearless, so unlike the refined persona of a proper Boston girl, and so caught up in a childlike giddiness, she realized later, she had never experienced in her own sad childhood.

“Wall Street tycoons celebrate with cigars,” he had pronounced, then waited in such a way that it sounded very much like a challenge.

“Is that a Hamiltonian suggestion?” she had quipped, accepting the offered victory cigar.

“No doubt, he might have,” he said. “But this suggestion was pure Jesse Livermore.”

So there she sat now, feet propped up, wineglass and cigar in hand. Will examined the image for a long moment. “That is certainly not the world’s image of Eleanor Putnam, refined Boston lady,” he said.

“Well, the world had better get used to it,” she said with satisfaction. She had taken a large puff and with her head back had attempted a smoke ring, but she coughed and released just a small, formless cloud. “What a
disgusting habit,” she said with a frown, eyeing the cigar. Her partner smiled and said nothing. Then she gave him a serious look. “You showed nerves of steel, Mr. H. You stood up to the House of Morgan.”

“What circumstance dictated,” he said. “Your Hyperion Fund is now over five million dollars.” He paused, just a little bit tipsy, as if to absorb himself what he had just concluded.

“
Our
Hyperion Fund,” she said.

“
Our
Hyperion Fund,” he said. “And I fear that
our
Hyperion Fund is not anonymous anymore.”

“And of your private funds? You followed suit?”

“As instructed, Miss Putnam. I sold my total holdings for the five hundred.” Then he added, “As required by our agreement.”

“That makes you a very wealthy man, Mr. H.”

“It does indeed.”

“And the Special Fund, your allowed ten percent to risk? What of that?”

Ted Honeycutt looked sheepish. “I risked,” he said quickly, the ragged look of the bucket-shop veteran coming into his eyes. The Special Fund was indeed, as intended, how he had learned, he rationalized, as he looked at its erratic performance over the time they had worked together. “I am afraid I gambled and did not follow your lead.”

“As allowed in our contract.”

“Yes, but—”

She interrupted him. “No need to apologize, Mr. Honeycutt. You were learning valuable lessons.” She paused and gave him a kind smile. “But now I wish to know the details.”

At first, Will said nothing and looked down at the carpet. “I waited for one thousand.”

She stared at him, letting the words sink in. “You sold at
one thousand
?”

“It was my speculator self,” Will said. “I was playing a hunch.”

“And that is what Alexander Hamilton would have done.”

Will looked down for a moment, not sure how much to divulge. “It is what he advised.”

For just an instant, a look of concern came onto her face, and Will Honeycutt, the man who heard voices, looked at her distractedly. Then a broad smile burst onto his face. “I am just joking,” he said. “The decision was all Will Honeycutt, bucket-shop master.” He paused and took a puff of his cigar. “Ten percent of our shares, bought at thirty-five and sold at one thousand.”

“And the Special Fund is now back in the black,” Eleanor said, her eyes wide.

“You could say that,” her partner said. He sounded steady and grounded.

She eyed him for a moment of pure admiration, suppressing a smile. “I am delighted for you,” she said. “But you have lost your bet.”

“Bet?” Will said.

“The Hyperion Fund has more than doubled by year’s end.”

Will looked puzzled for just a moment. “I had forgotten,” he said. “I have indeed lost that bet. A good year has not yet passed and you have more than doubled the Hyperion Fund.”

“
We,
” Eleanor corrected him quickly. “You and I. A fateful team. It was meant to be, only one of us didn’t realize it.”

“
We,
” Will Honeycutt repeated, nodding.

She looked at him for a moment, considering her words. “Something has been worrying me all day,” she said, handing him the article from Frank Burden’s bank.

Will Honeycutt gave the paper a long look. “Oh,” he said suddenly, looking sunk. He was caught. “You have found Cousin Williams. It was bound to happen.”

Eleanor nodded slowly, saying nothing.

“He is your stocks and bonds man,” Will said, his head down, “an inveterate one. He’s quite unlike me; I guess you discovered all that.”

Still she waited for more explanation, but none came. “He’s brilliant with commodities and bonds,” she said, quoting Frank Burden mechanically. “I already know that. Another T. Williams Honeycutt?”

“Only he calls himself Williams, rather pretentious, I always thought. You probably know that too. I was always called Ted,” he added, his resignation becoming all the more obvious. “That is, before you changed me to Will.” He swallowed hard. “Williams is a little older, grew up in Boston, went to Harvard and all, but lives in Chicago now. I always thought he was an arrogant bully,” he added. “He’s a commodities trader, a real business type.” He paused and let it sink in. “A successful one.”

“But where was he when I was looking?”

“Out of town. Away from Chicago, studying in Oxford or some such at the time. Now he’s back.”

“Studying
economic theory
at Oxford, I am to assume.”

“Yes,” he said, still looking sheepish. “As I said, a capitalist type through and through.”

“And always was a ‘capitalist type’?” she said, musing. “And you knew of him when I first found you?”

Suddenly, he stopped rambling and was quiet for a moment, pulling himself up into his new assertive persona. “Of course I knew of him,” he said. “He is my cousin.”

Eleanor said nothing, her mind whirring with the first inkling of the enormous misstep: that she had chosen the wrong man to fulfill the destiny of the journal. “And?” she said finally.

“He is the one you were looking for,” this Will Honeycutt said. “I knew that from the beginning. He’s a capitalist and has been since he was a boy, from birth. He’s your man.” He looked down but seemed relieved that all this was finally coming out. “I knew this day would come. I am prepared to relinquish my position and return to my life in physics research.”

Eleanor looked nonplussed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He still could not bring himself to look at her. “Because I didn’t wish to tell you,” he said finally. “I wanted you to choose me.”

“But why, Will?”

“Because—” He was now about to become emphatic. “I just wanted it—” Another pause. “It was an emotional thing. I am not good at emotions, you know, and I wanted you to choose me. It’s as plain as that. I wanted you to choose me.” There was now a long silence between them; each looked into the other’s eyes. “There, I said it.”

“I understand,” she said softly, but he was not finished.

“Well, you asked,” he said without remorse or embarrassment, retaining that spark of steely resolve. Then it all came out in a burst. “I know you will marry Frank Burden, and I know you will create a perfect Boston family and become a highly respected patron of the arts, and you will be very, very good at it all, and that there is no way I could measure up to any of that. I know all that. I would not have intruded in that in any way, I promise, so you needn’t have worried. I don’t have much else of value in my life, and I probably was about to be bounced from my position at Harvard, half of them thinking me deranged. I just wanted to be close to you, and I must admit that it meant the world to me whilst I was there.” He reached a crescendo, paused again, and looked down. “There again, I said that too!”