The Trainmasters (41 page)

When Carlysle was led into the room, Thomson spoke to him without looking up from a set of papers he was scanning and initialing.
“John, I received the telegram early today saying you were coming. And it was good news to me when it arrived. I’m glad to
have you in Philadelphia. I’ll be most interested to hear why you’ve come.”

“It’s quite a story,” John said.

“Can’t wait to hear it. But I have to. Can you bear with me a bit. Be patient. You’ll see why soon enough.”

So John sat and waited, uneasily at first but with growing calmness: It was clear to him that Thomson was genuinely glad to
have John at his side even if the chief engineer never said that in so many words.

Throughout the morning John had learned bits and pieces of news more astonishing than his own message. William Patterson had
fled the country. He had taken passage the previous night on a ship bound for Naples and had left the Pennsylvania Railroad
in financial shambles.

Apparently Patterson had taken for his own use hundreds of thousands of dollars of railroad money. He had also issued hundreds
of shares of fraudulent Pennsylvania stock, which he had gone on to use as collateral for huge personal loans. And what was
worse, the two men who held these bad shares were Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew.

Vanderbilt was now on the warpath. He was scheduled to appear in Philadelphia on the following afternoon, and he was sure
to demand that the railroad make good on the bad shares.

This the railroad was unable to do.

Drew had not been heard from yet. But Thomson had no doubt that he would prove to be every bit as difficult as Vanderbilt
promised to be.

As John listened and watched and waited for Thomson to speak with him, he paid close attention to Thomson himself, liking
more and more what he saw. Not only did he clearly welcome John’s presence, but all evidence of the malaise that had worried
Kitty was now gone. His old confidence was very much in evidence.

Thomson, in fact, was charged with a fierce energy which at the same time was quiet and intensely directed. John knew the
man was a dominant force, but he had never before realized how strong Thomson could be. The only man John knew who could equal
him in that respect was Sir Charles Elliot.

At long last, Thomson stood up and walked over to his office door. “Sam,” he called out to his assistant, “I’m going to shut
this for half an hour. During that time I’m not to be disturbed. No one. Nothing. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” a voice from outside said.

Then Thomson shut the door.

“Now for you,” he said, turning to John. “Tell me your good news.” His eyes had a sardonic gleam that John had not seen during
their previous meetings. But it was not a malicious look, John could tell. It was the look one man of rich experience gave
to another, acknowledging what Vergil long ago called “the tears of things”… and his refusal to drown in them.

“And tell me,” he went on, “what you think of all the news you’ve been listening to this morning.” He moved to sit down in
his desk chair. “I never thought,” he said with a sigh as he sank into his seat, “that running a railroad could be so stimulating.”

“I’m not sure what I think about all that,” John said. “Except that it is yet another astonishing addition to an uncommonly
large number of amazing accidents and mishaps.”

Thomson gave a nod of understanding. He had obviously had similar thoughts himself. “So tell me about the labor troubles at
Gallitzin,” he said. “Then we should discuss the cause of our accidents and mishaps.”

“Before I do that,” John said, “I’d like you to satisfy a bit of curiosity of mine.”

“I’ll try.”

“I assume now that you’ll become president of the Pennsylvania.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Thomson said simply, without making any kind of show of modesty or humility. “There’ll be an extraordinary
meeting of the board tomorrow morning. They’ll vote me the job… though God knows if it will mean a damn thing by the end of
the year.” He said this darkly, sadly.

“So you’re not to be blamed in any way for what has happened?” At the same time, John asked himself,
Why the end of the year? Why is he being so ominous?

“Not at all. On the contrary, I’ll be vindicated, though, again, it may not matter a damn.” The last words fell like a nail
into a coffin.

“Why?” John asked, with growing alarm. “Are you worried about the money that’s lost?”

“Of course,” Thomson said. “I don’t know where we’ll find the money to continue building. But I’m also worried about some
recent movements of Pennsylvania stock. I can’t explain what’s causing them.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Over the past couple of months there has been considerable activity in Pennsylvania stocks. Unusual activity. Tens of thousands
of our shares have changed hands. First the stock rose—presumably on account of the good news about the refinancing that Will
Patterson put together. But then the rumors started floating around, rumors of our labor troubles and of the various ‘accidents’
that have been hitting us. And now it turns out that someone has been selling our stock short,” Thomson said. “And doing that
in huge volumes.”

“I don’t understand,” John said. “What do you mean by selling short?”

“It’s a kind of financial manipulation,” Thomson explained. “An investor can ‘borrow’ stock from its owner and then sell it,
without the owner knowing that his stock has been borrowed.”

John looked even more confused than ever. “The owner doesn’t know about this?”

“Nothing.”

“But—”

“Later, on some due date agreed upon with the broker, the borrower agrees to purchase it from the lender.”

“Even though the lender doesn’t know that the stock is borrowed?”

“That’s right. The borrower expects when he borrows the stock in the first place that what he will have to pay on the due
date will be less than he receives when he first sells the borrowed stock.”

“And so he pockets the difference?”

“Exactly.”

“And someone,” John said, “is now selling Pennsylvania stock short?”

“Yes, in vast amounts.” He paused to let that sink in. “But slowly, in order to avoid depressing the market prematurely”

“And all this is legal?”

“Every bit of it.”

“I’m beginning to sense still another accidental misfortune,” John said wryly.

“Exactly,” Thomson said, with the sardonic gleam again in his eyes. “Another accident.”

“And these short sales all come due when?”

“They start coming due sometime next month, as far as I can make out. Again, they are spread out beyond that. But if we don’t
do something about the problem within the month —before word spreads about the massive short sales—then the bottom could easily
drop out of Pennsylvania stock. And that could mean bankruptcy.”

“That makes me very happy to be the owner of a thousand shares,” John said.

“And I own twenty thousand,” Thomson said, grim-eyed. “Which makes me soar with ecstasy.” He hesitated a moment. Then changed
the subject. “Now tell me about Gallitzin.”

Except for an occasional question to clarify a fact or to understand properly the sequence of events, Thomson listened in
rapt silence as John told him the story of the weekend at Gallitzin. But when John reached the moment when he and Collins,
now deserted by all Collins’s guards, walked past the burning hay wagon and gave themselves into the hands of Egan O’Rahilly,
Thomson raised his hands high above his head and cried out, “Whoa! Whoa! Stop right there! I need to catch my breath. I need
to set your story straight.”

John smiled and nodded. “Fine,” he said. “What more can I tell you?”

“You can tell me much, much more.” But then his face broke out into a huge, admiring grin. “In a moment. Before that I want
to look at you.”

“Look at
me?
Why?”

The grin was still on his face. “In order to admire you! Because it’s the only way I can grasp what you did the other day.
Do you realize what you have accomplished?”

“I put Tom Collins on the run…”

“That’s right,” Thomson said. “And for that, you are to be congratulated. But there was more to what you did than that. You
averted what could have been a very serious, very violent confrontation. And you very likely saved many lives and much property.
Have you thought about that?”

John made a slight nod. “Yes, actually, I have,” he said quietly.

“I never realized that I’d hired a man of such daring and imagination,” Thomson said.

“Thank you,” John said. It was all he could think of as a reply.

“Now you can tell me why I shouldn’t put you in front of a firing squad.” Thomson was laughing, but there was fierceness in
his face as well. “If you were in the army and did what you did, they’d have probably court-martialed you for treason.” And
then he caught John’s eyes and acknowledged the doubt he saw in them. “Don’t mistake me. From what you’ve told me, you’ve
done the absolutely correct thing. Not only were you right, it looks like your plan might actually bear fruit. But I need
some explanations. And I suspect the board tomorrow might well ask for some as well. We don’t just casually drive off by force
one of our largest labor contractors.”

John held Thomson’s eyes. “I didn’t do any of this casually,” he said by way of explanation, not apology. “Nor was 1 unaware
of the magnitude of the acts I decided to undertake. Nor was I any less aware that I was doing these without any kind of official
sanction by the railroad or by you. You won’t be held accountable for what I’ve done.”

“That’s once again not what I meant,” Thomson said. “As I said, you were superlatively bold, daring, and imaginative. And
I believe every one of your recent actions was brilliantly conceived and executed. I’m happy that we are associated. And I
hope we will continue to be. But I am going to be asked questions, and I want to answer them in a way that does credit to
both of us. I also—” he paused for a long breath, “am beginning to see more and more clearly the method that is being used
to ensure that the short sales bear fruit.”

“Right,” John said briskly, happy with the reassurance, “then let’s look at my reasons.”

Then John went through the logic that had led to his suspicions of Tom Collins.

When he finished Thomson nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “Yes, good,” he said quietly, reflectively. “I see what you were
thinking and why—though in the absence of any kind of direct evidence, it does seem quite a risk.”

“The final evidence for me was Collins’s plan to dismiss the leaders. Those were men we could not do without. And they were
the very ones he was determined to let go.”

“Yes, I agree; but still, what am I going to tell the board?”

“We’ll have to wait for the next stage.”

“The next stage?” Thomson asked.

“I expect that Tom Collins’s next move will be to run to his master. I’ve taken steps to ensure that we will know who that
person is.”

“You’ve had him followed?”

“I’ve sent two men to do that. We should receive their report tomorrow.” John decided not to mention the names of the two
men. He especially did not want to open up with Thomson the thorny issue of Thomson’s opinions of Francis Stockton.

“It seems to me that you’ve covered all the possibilities, then,” Thomson said, rising to put an end to their conversation.
“I expect you’d like some time to yourself? You’ve been on the move for several days.”

“Yes, I would, actually,” John said, rising.

“When will you be needed back in Gallitzin? Are you free to stay here for a few days to help me?”

“I should think they could do without me—that they’ll
want
to do without me—for a day or two. The workers and their superiors will need time to put themselves back in order, and to
readjust themselves to me. I have only recently been a villain.”

“Good. Then you’ll stay here with me. You can stay in my house, if you like.”

“I’d like that very much.” He paused before leaving. “Before I go, I have two requests.”

“Yes?”

“One has to do with the man O’Rahilly I’ve been talking so much about.”

“He sounds exemplary.”

“Better than that.”

“And you’d like to reward him?”

“Yes,” John said. “But better than
that:
I’d like to make him the new labor contractor.”

“Really?” he said with furrowed brow. “Isn’t he rather young and inexperienced for that?”

“He’ll get the work done. There’s no one better in the world.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do it,” Thomson said decisively, after only the briefest of pauses. “And you have another request?”

“I’d like to see your daughter, Kitty.”

“But you will see her,” Thomson said, with pretended innocence and a huge grin, “if you stay at my house.”

“You know what I mean,” John said, coloring.

“You like her, don’t you?”

“Very much.”

“She also likes you,” Thomson said simply. “And you want to see her now?”

“Yes, today.”

Thomson considered the matter for only a moment. “Do it,” he repeated. “You’ll find her at home.” He caught John’s eye. And
then he softened. “And you have my blessings.” Then he smiled.

“I’m surprised she’s not here with you,” John said, as he walked to the door.

“I refused to let her come. It would never have done to have a woman at my side when I took over the Pennsylvania.”