The newspapers printed an appeal that afternoon, from Clegg’s family, addressed to the Skull, stating that it was a physical impossibility to raise four million dollars by midnight, let alone in gold. It appealed to the Skull to set a more moderate ransom, one that it would be possible to pay. Not even a millionaire, the notice stated, could pay four million dollars, or even one million. People just didn’t keep their assets in liquid cash.
It was hoped that there would be some response to this appeal, some sort of word from the kidnapers. To the consternation of Clegg’s family and business associates, not a word was forthcoming. For one week they waited in anxiety and dread, until the day that Mr. Elisha Pond found Ainsworth Clegg in the street.
MR. ELISHA POND, whose means no one questioned, was himself a rather mysterious personage, whose goings and comings had long ago become the despair of society matrons. For months at a time he might not be heard from at all, and then, with no notice of his coming, he would drop into the Bankers’ Club and spend a few hours with a particular group of men who usually congregated there after dinner. Among these were Pelham Grier, the stock broker, Jonathan Jewett, head of one of the largest insurance companies in America, and Commissioner Foster, at present head of the police department.
Subsequently, Mr. Pond might be seen around town for as much as a month at a time, or else he might drop out of sight again the very next day. He had long been an enigma to his friends, and they had given up speculating as to what he did with his unaccounted for time.
Mr. Pond first saw Ainsworth Clegg as he was crossing the street on the way to the club. He was standing listlessly on one of the crosswalks of the subway construction job that had caused the whole street and many others in the vicinity to be ripped up for many months now.
At first Mr. Pond thought the man was a beggar, from his dejected attitude. But a closer inspection showed that here was something far different from a casual mendicant. The man’s eyes were vacant. He seemed to have no control over his muscles; for his jaw hung open.
The man’s whole frame seemed to sag and shake, as if he were an automaton without any guiding control. He was resting against the railing of the crosswalk, and seemed on the point of slipping underneath the railing into the deep subway cut below.
Pond reached out a supporting hand, helped him across the street to the opposite sidewalk. The man did not walk, he shuffled. Apparently he had not enough muscular control of his body to lift his feet. Once across, Mr. Pond said to him, “You should be in a hospital. Do you want to be taken to one?”
His only answer was a vacant stare from eyes that seemed devoid of human intelligence. Pond himself was a graduate of a recognized medical college, had, in fact, at one time practiced medicine. But he was at a loss to diagnose the cause of this man’s condition. And then, as he gazed more carefully at the man’s countenance, he stiffened, and allowed a little gasp of amazement to escape his lips. For he recognized in this broken hulk of a man devoid of human intelligence, the once brilliant, masterful business executive, Ainsworth Clegg, Chairman of the Board of Paramount Oil.
IT was, perhaps, three quarters of an hour later that Mr. Elisha Pond sat with a group of six other distinguished gentlemen in a corner of the Bankers’ Club.
Pond had brought the hulk of Ainsworth Clegg into the staff physician’s room at the club, where he had been carefully examined without discovering what had caused his condition. Commissioner Foster had been at the club, and he had arranged for Clegg to be removed to a hospital without making his return known to the general public.
Now, the group of men was seriously discussing the problem. Arnold Hilary, the newspaper publisher, shifted uneasily in his seat. “Suppose,” he muttered, “that this Skull, as he calls himself, should take a notion to snatch all of us who are here. What would stop him?”
Commissioner Foster, who sat next to Pond, clenched a fist and brought it down on his own knee with such vehemence that he winced. “Damn it, nothing would stop him — that’s the rub! I’ve got every available man out, trying to pick up a lead. We place the guards on those men who might be marked as possible victims. And what happens?” He paused, and glared around at the circle of friends. “This Skull snatches them right out from under our noses! And he leaves his damned card, too! But we’ll get — I swear we’ll get him if I have to appoint every citizen of the city a special officer!”
Pelham Grier, the stockbroker, big, portly, red-faced, chewed a cigar thoughtfully. “Even at that, Foster, you might be appointing the Skull himself a special officer. You admit that you haven’t got the faintest notion who he is. Can’t you even make a guess as to his identity?”
Pond looked from one to the other. These men, titans of finance and business, were like little children when faced by a situation such as this, indulging in idle threats and guesses when there was serious work to do. Harrison Dennett, the construction man, ventured to say, “Maybe it’s this criminal that’s known as Secret Agent ‘X.’ I understand he’s been able to outsmart the police every time.” He cast a malicious sideglance at Foster.
The commissioner shook his head. “This Secret Agent ‘X’ may be a criminal. In fact, if I should lay my hands on him he’d be sent away for the rest of his natural life, and then some. But I’ll say this for him — I’ve never known him to kill.”
Dennett shuddered. “I should never have taken that subway job. It’s been hoodooed from the very beginning. Four men were killed on the job in the first month, and the whole crew went on strike. They said there was a jinx around, and I almost believed them. Those four casualties happened in very peculiar ways. The rest of the men wouldn’t go back to work, so I had to hire help in Philadelphia and pay their fare in. Now, Clegg is found right outside the job. I bet the men get scared again, and quit on me. I’ll lose my shirt on that job!”
Dennett looked defiantly from one to the other. “There’s been sabotage on that contract ever since I got the award. It almost seems as if some one is deliberately trying to ruin me so he can take the job away from me. But I tell you all right now—” his chin jutted obstinately “—I don’t give up easy!”
Jonathan Jewett, the gaunt, hard-headed president of the Northern Continent Insurance Company, who had sat silent through the conversation so far, said to Dennett in a manner strangely kindly for so forbidding an old man, “I understand that you’re strapped for money on account of all these delays. Why don’t you stop in to see me some time at the office? I may be able to work out a program where the Northern Continent could lend you sufficient on a bond issue to pull through.”
“Yes,” said Dennett bitterly. “And then the Northern Continent would own the job. I’d be out in the cold.” He forced a smile. “I like you personally, Jewett, but you drive a hard bargain. No, thanks. I’ll try to pull through without mortgaging my soul to you!”
JEWETT shrugged. “As you please, Dennett. But remember, I offered to help.”
The remaining two members of the group had listened with rapt interest. They were Pierre Laurens, proprietor of the largest jewelry store in the city, and Arnold Hilary, publisher of the Herald.
Pond, observing all of them, noted that Hilary seemed strangely nervous, while Laurens, a thin dark, lean-jawed man slightly under medium height, was quite at ease. It was Laurens whose jewelry store had been raided by the Servants of the Skull recently, and a fortune in stones taken.