So Many Fakes!
by Edward Parrish Ware
Herb Garth considered himself smart enough to know when opportunity knocks — even opportunity for murder.
I
“Garth you’ve ruined me! You have squeezed me dry, you damned, dirty blackmailer!”
Sam Brayden, lined, middle-aged face as white as the unused blotter upon which his clenched fist rested, fairly spat the words in a voice choked with hate, despair and mental agony.
“Take a drink, Sam, and get a grip on yourself,” calmly advised the man upon whom he had poured his wrath and accusation. “Nobody knows Herb Garth like Herb Garth, let me remind you, so you can’t hope to tell me anything about myself that I don’t already know.”
Herbert T. Garth, financier, largely interested in bridge and dam construction in the Ozark Mountains, poured himself a moderate drink from a bottle on the desk, swallowed it neat, then leaned back in the swivel chair and calmly lit a cigar.
The situation was an odd one. Years before, Brayden, then using his real name of Dan Adams, had cheated a big dam, then under his charge, of the cement due it, pocketing the difference in money. The trick had been uncovered, and Adams had been kicked out of the profession to which he had proved a disgrace.
Later he had gained a footing in the Missouri Ozarks, and, under the name of Brayden, had prospered. He had gone straight, and was well thought of throughout the district. Then came the biggest job of his career — the White River dam at Big Rock.
The job had also proved his undoing.
Herbert Garth, interested in the dam and a member of the board of inspectors, had known the young Dan Adams — and he did not fail to recognize him in the now middle-aged Brayden. Garth, too, had a past. One he believed well covered up. He also loved easy money, and this was his chance to get some.
Brayden had pleaded in vain when Garth approached him and demanded money in large sums as a price of his silence. He had even threatened Garth’s life, all to no purpose.
“You should be very careful of my life, Dan — ah, Sam, I mean,” Garth had replied significantly when threatened. “There are a lot of things that would come out should I die suddenly — among them a complete report on Dan Adams, alias Sam Brayden. Better play cards with me than against me, Sam, because I’ve got every ace in the deck, and all the face cards as well.”
“God!” the miserable Brayden had groaned, face buried in his hands. “And I have been thinking that at last opportunity had knocked at my door! That my big chance had come!”
“Opportunity?” Garth commented tauntingly. “Why, Sam, you thought once before that opportunity had knocked at your door. That was when you cheated the big dam out in Utah. Your opportunity to feather your nest, it was. But, my dear chap, Old Man Opportunity has many impersonators, and one never knows, when he answers a knock, whether it is the old gentleman in person or just one of the fakes. So many fakes, Dan — er, Sam, I mean. So damned many fakes!”
Sam Brayden had yielded. What else could he do? It was play the game with Garth, or stand exposed as the former liar and cheat, Dan Adams. That would be complete ruin for him.
So, for the second time in his career, he yielded up his honor — and cheated a dam. Cheated in order to pay Garth’s demands.
Then came more trouble. Certain parts of the dam didn’t look so good, and an inspector who could not be bought had wired certain things to the St. Louis office that resulted in bringing the board of inspectors to Spring-field hot-foot. Brayden had met them in Springfield, and was on that first night closeted with Garth in his city office.
“You’ve got to get me by, Garth!” Brayden declared hollowly. “You’re on the inspecting board, and you have influence. This job must stand up. Why, man, if it is condemned, look what you stand to lose!”
“I lose?” Garth queried. “Why, my dear Adams — er, Brayden, I mean — I stand to lose but very little through the dam if it is condemned. You see, old chap, I had a chance to turn my stock several weeks ago at a nice profit. I did so. I have not yet announced the transaction to my fellow stockholders — and why should I? Now, Brayden, do you see things clearer?”
Brayden saw. He also saw a haze of reddish hue hovering between himself and Garth — a visualization of the blood lust that pulsed within him.
“If a mouse had the nerve and the ability to kill a cat,” Garth, fully aware of what was in Brayden’s mind, commented tauntingly, “it wouldn’t be a mouse.”
Brayden stared at him steadily for a long moment
“All right, Herb,” he said, his voice having steadied greatly, “if I’m shown up on the job when we inspect it tomorrow, then I’m confessing it all. I’m bringing you into it, damn your black heart — and I’m going to show you up for what you are! Taste that, Mr. Cat — and see if it’s cream!”
That possibility was exactly what had been causing Garth uneasiness.
“I have not said, Sam, that I would not try and get you by,” Garth told him, considering the glowing end of his cigar wisely. “I shall, in fact, try my best to cover up your dirty work. But if I can’t... well, just what can you prove against me?”
Brayden considered the cold face of his tormentor for a moment, then did what no sane man would have done. He showed his ace-in-the-hole.
“I’ve done some digging into your past lately,” he said with pardonable venom. “Had good luck from the start. Struck pay-dirt right off the reel — Mr. Horace K. Bootan!”
At the mention of that name Herb Garth started violently. By a mighty effort he regained control of himself, at least to a degree. Presently, looking across the desk at the man he had fully intended to ruin the very next day, he spoke in a voice he could not quite control.
II
“The old Bootan Mining Corporation matter, eh?”
“Exactly.”
“That would look a bit ugly — if you can prove anything. Suppose you can, huh? Not just bluffing?”
“I’m not bluffing. Either you get me across to-morrow, or I’ll lay information before certain persons connected with the United States Commissioner’s office in Springfield that will land you behind bars — slick though you think you are!”
Garth nodded his head slowly. “You could, of course, do just that — provided you’ve got proof of my former identity as Bootan. Using the mails to defraud — well, aside from the fact that I don’t care for the climate either at Leavenworth or Atlanta, I should be shown up rather completely and my usefulness in this mundane sphere utterly destroyed. I suppose, er, you have documentary evidence that would convict, eh, Sam?”
“You bet I have!”
Garth fixed his half-lidded gaze intently upon Brayden’s face. Brayden never had been a very convincing liar. His glance wavered, dropped, and Garth breathed a bit easier.
“Liar,” he was thinking. “He’s got certain information that would perhaps result badly for me, if followed up. Yes, I should say, damned badly. But nothing of a documentary character. Guess here is where you help a victim out of a hole, Herb, old chap — else get down into the hole with him. That’s hell, my boy — but the doctor says take it!”
He laughed, reached for the bottle and filled two glasses to the brim. Shoving one of the glasses toward Brayden, he exclaimed genially.
“Sam, old chap, you surely didn’t think I’d let you down on that inspection to-morrow! Surely not! Just leave it to me, and everything will go through exactly as we desire it to. Er, by the way,” he went on as an afterthought, raising his glass from the table, “you haven’t been fool enough to keep any records, or notes, on our transactions, have you?”