The Trainmasters (47 page)

“Yes.”

And Thomson told him about the kidnapping of the women and children. “We’ve had no message from the kidnappers, but there’s
little doubt about their identity. It was surely the Keans.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Kidnap women and children?”

“Right. Why would they stoop to a thing that base?”

“I don’t know,” Thomson said. “I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times. And I’m sure John Carlysle has asked himself
the same thing at least twice as often.”

“Kidnapping the women and children
would
sow more confusion,” Vanderbilt said reflectively, “if confusion’s their aim. But it’s such an outrage that it’s liable to
stir up the hornets’ anger more than it baffles and disconcerts them.”

“I expect we’ll receive some threats soon,” Thomson said. “Some kind of extortion demands will come before long.”

“What’s your man Carlysle doing about it?”

“What you’d expect. Searched the immediate vicinity. Asked questions. But,” he shrugged, “they’ve had no luck.”

“And that’s where it stands?” Vanderbilt asked.

“That’s where it stands,” Thomson said with a soft sigh. But then his face lit up a little. “And now you have something to
tell me?”

Vanderbilt could not rein in his grin. “That I do.”

“It must be interesting,” Thomson said, encouraged by the smile.

“If you believe knowing who’s shorting your stock is interesting.”

Thomson just stared. Finally, he found his voice. “Who?”

“Dan’l Drew.”

“So Drew’s the one.” He tilted his face to the ceiling, took a long breath, then turned his attention back to Vanderbilt.
“How did you find that out?”

“It wasn’t particularly hard. I asked around the exchange a bit. And on Wall Street. He’d hid his tracks, or at least he tried
to, with some cover names. He used some men to buy for him, as blinds. But it was Dan’l for sure. No doubt about that.”

“And he was the principal behind all our recent—”

Vanderbilt answered before Thomson had finished that thought, “No doubt about that either. It was always Dan’s way to avoid
a gamble when he could manage it. If he could put the Pennsylvania in a precarious way, then the stock’d go precarious, too.
And that’d make selling it short a near certain thing. No risk. No gamble.”

“What’s that mean for us?”

“It means there’s a pretty good chance he can win…”

“Unless.”

Vanderbilt gave Thomson another one of his predatory grins. “You’re going to have to come up with a lot of money, Mr. Thomson.
An awful lot of money.” The grin grew wider. “But,” he said as he caught Thomson’s eye, “there’s a tremendous opportunity
in all this… if you’re bold. And smart. And if,” he laughed, “you can come up with the money.”

“Go on.”

“It’s hard to say exactly how many blinds my friend Dan’l has set up. But the total amount of shorted stock’s in the neighborhood
of sixty thousand shares.”

“Sixty thousand shares?” Thomson cried, incredulous. “That much? Unbelievable! How’d he manage to borrow all that? It’s over
a quarter of the outstanding shares.”

“He’s a thief and a scoundrel, my Dan’l. But you’ll never catch me accusin’ him of bein’ dumb. What he did is go after the
stock the state and the cities and towns own… They don’t know a thing about it, mind.”

“I understand that.”

“And he was behind the runnin’ up of the stock in May. When Pennsylvania stock got hot and went up to fifty-four.”

“That makes sense. That’s when there was all the activity in the stock—after Will Patterson arranged all his financing. We
thought then that it was because of the new financing that so much stock was traded. But it wasn’t that, was it?”

“Nope,” Vanderbilt said quietly. “It was Dan’l settin’ things up. He was very carefully sellin’ what he’d borrowed.”

Thomson paused, meditating. Then he said, “So when does he have to cover his shorts?”

“He has to deliver starting next month.”

“And the stock’s already down to forty-seven.”

“Yep,” Vanderbilt said with a nod. “And I think that he’s aimin’ to bring the stock down to about twenty-five or thirty. Or
lower, if he can manage that.”

Thomson gave him a bleak look. “Where’s the tremendous opportunity in all this? All I see is that I’m about to preside over
the ruin of the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

“Not if you can get some money.”

“If I could get
some
money, my dear Mr. Vanderbilt, I’d
own
this railroad.”

“That’s what the opportunity is. Now Dan’l has to buy back and return the stock he borrowed. If he can buy it for the twenty-five
or thirty he hopes to get it for, then he stands to make somethin’ over a million dollars. But if another buyer can be found
to get stock and keep the price up, then he loses a bundle.”

“Somebody who knows what Drew’s up to could move in and corner that stock.”

“That’s right!” Vanderbilt said. His voice was like a whip. And as he spoke, he gave Thomson a hard but encouraging look.
He was not by any means lacking in sympathy for Thomson’s situation. “What you got to do, my friend, is corner that stock.
If you work it right, you’ll control the railroad, and he’ll have to buy that stock he’s shorted for—I don’t know—maybe sixty.
Maybe more.”

“It makes a nice fairy tale for children,” Thomson said wryly and hopelessly.

“I can be in with you for some,” Vanderbilt said. “And I’d like to be in with you for more. I kind of think I’d like to own
me a railroad someday.” He paused to savor that possibility. “But right now I’m pretty well tied down in ships … and this
canal thing in Nicaragua. If that damn place ain’t a hole to pour money into, I tell you!”

“Then pull out,” Thomson said reasonably.

But Vanderbilt shook his head. “Someday there’s gonna be a canal through Central America. And the best place for it is Nicaragua.
Do you know what that canal’s gonna be worth to the man that owns it?”

“Millions.”

“That’s right. Millions.”

“So that’s why your money is tied up.”

“Yep.” Then Vanderbilt withdrew a watch from his pocket. “It’s nearly five. There’s a train leaving here at six for Jersey
City. I’d best be on it.” He rose.

“You won’t stay the night?” Thomson asked.

“Thanks for the offer. But no. I can’t. I’ll be back though in a couple of days. Maybe you will have come up with an idea
or two about where to find money.”

“I’ll work on it,” Thomson said with obvious despair in his voice. “I don’t know where I’ll find the kind of money we’d need.
What do you think it would take… close to a million dollars, no?”

“Prob’ly.” And then he corrected that. “Maybe more’n that.”

But then Vanderbilt brightened. “Oh God! I nearly forgot!” Thomson had never seen the Commodore’s face so vivid with excitement.

“Yes?”

“When I come in a few days, there’s a new thing of mine I want you to see.”

“What’s that?” Thomson asked, intrigued. Did Vanderbilt have something up his sleeve that could help the railroad?

“I want to show you my new boat.”

“Your new boat?” he asked politely.

“The
North Star
is her name. And I built her for me only … She’s my personal yacht. Two hundred and seventy foot long; and her tonnage’s
close to twenty-five hundred. And she’s a beauty. Nothin’ faster on the water.” There was pride and eagerness in his voice.
He’d changed in an instant from the financier hot on the trail of a big killing to a little boy with a new toy. “She’s just
about finished and ready for a final shakedown. So maybe I’ll sail her down here and take you out, before I take her on her
maiden voyage.”

“I’d be delighted to see her,” Thomson said, with as much tact as he could manage.

Goddamn! Thomson thought, angry and exasperated. The man wants to show off his new yacht while I try to come up with a million
dollars! And I’ve got scarcely a month in which to do it.

Later, at supper, Thomson summarized his meeting with Vanderbilt for Kitty, including Vanderbilt’s plan to show off his newest
plaything.

After he finished she put her hand to her mouth. Then she started to laugh.

“Damn it, Kitty,” her father flared, “don’t do that. It’s not funny. It’s over a million dollars… and years of work. And the
best damn railroad this country could ever see, all going like spit down the well. And you laugh at it.”

“It’s not at you, Father,” she said, still giggling. “And it’s not about the trouble the railroad’s having either.”

“Then what?” he snapped.

“I know who has the money you want.”

“You what?” he said, incredulous.

“I said I know who has the money.”

“The federal mint,” he said sarcastically.

“That’s not who I mean.”

“Then who? Stop playing.” He took a bite of potato.

“Charles Elliot, of course.”

Her father choked. Coughed. Laid his fork down and grabbed his glass.

“Are you all right, Father?” she asked, rising to go to his aid.

“Stay there,” he said. “I’m fine.”

She resumed her place. “You heard who I said?”

“I heard you.”

“Well?”

“You’re right, Kitty. He has the money, and he just might be willing to invest it here.”

“Well?” She looked at him. “What are you going to do?”

“I want to think about it.”

Early on the morning of Wednesday, July seventh, Graham Carlysle took a horse from the stable and left Gallitzin. Before he
left, he did not tell anyone where he was going or even that he was going. But he did leave behind the following messages.
The first was addressed to his father. The second had been addressed to Graham himself.

Dear Father,

The accompanying note will explain why I’m doing what by now I’ve done. Please do as it says; don’t follow me.

Graham

The other one read:

After he read the messages John Carlysle immediately summoned Egan O’Rahilly to his office in the adminisvation building.

When Egan arrived, he gave him the notes to read

“So it is definitely the Keans, isn’t it?” Egan sa: i when he’d finished reading. He passed the pages back to John.

“Definitely,” John said.

“So what do we do?” Egan went on. “Do we wait to see if they give the children and Deirdre back?”

“On the theory that half a loaf is better than nothing?” John asked, grim-faced. Then he answered his own question. “That’s
not good enough.”

“I know it’s not good enough,” Egan said. “But do you have a better idea?”

“The obvious answer to that,” John said speculatively, pulling hard on his lower jaw, “would have been to ignore the warning
and follow Graham to Tyrone.”

“You’ve ruled out that choice?”

“I gave it serious thought,” John said. “But the choice was taken out of my hands. By the time these notes reached me, Graham
had arrived in Tyrone. An exchange of telegraph messages with our people in Tyrone established that. Graham was met there.”

“And Deirdre and the kids?” Egan asked.

“No. There was no sign of them. There was no exchange.”

“The Keans didn’t leave them?” Egan asked. “Holy Mary Mother of God! They were lying! And now they’ve got Graham, too!”

“They might send them later,” John said without much conviction.

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” John said sadly. “I really believe they’ll keep them and hold them up for more.”

“For more what?” Francis asked.

“I don’t know,” John said. “I could see how the father wanted to exact revenge on the people who killed his son— it’s insane
but understandable—but I can’t make any sense at all of this other.”

“So what do we do?”

“I have another problem,” John said, producing a telegraph message. “Read this.”

TO: JOHN CARLYSLE

FROM: J. EDGAR THOMSON

URGENT YOU COME TO PHILADELPHIA

INSTANTLY STOP IMPERATIVE THERE BE NO DELAY STOP YOU MUST RETURN TO ENGLAND STOP WILL EXPLAIN ON YOUR ARRIVAL STOP THOMSON

“What do you make of that?” Egan asked.

“I wish I knew,” John said. “This certainly doesn’t tell me much.”

“Mr. Thomson obviously thinks he needs you,” Egan said.

“I’m sure he truly believes he does,” John said with a slight negative headshake, “but I’m also needed here.”

“I think he must know that, too,” Egan said, trying to place himself in Thomson’s shoes, trying to see what might have been
inside Thomson’s mind. “He knows about the kidnapping?”

“Of course,” John said.

“I’m wondering if he might know something about it that we don’t, and that he doesn’t want to tell you in the open, on the
telegraph.”

“That’s possible,” John said. “But if that’s the case, why should he want me to go to England now?”