You couldn’t take a single chance with King, so I went to my office that night to get the agreement ready. I knew how to use the typewriter, so I wrote it out. I made a carbon copy for myself.
It was not eight o’clock the next morning when I reached my office. I was so anxious to get the deal started and through with I hadn’t slept any, and I wanted to be down where things were going to happen. I was surprised to hear the typewriter clicking when I let myself in, and there was Brentwood. I wondered* what had brought him down so early, and he offered a pile of letters as a reason, so I felt satisfied.
By nine o’clock King had signed the agreement, and when the market opened we started to work. You remember when C & Q broke about 50 points. King and I made a fortune, but it broke Landis. He lost his head when he saw the market slipping, because most of his money had been tied up in C & Q. He tried to hold it up, but we had our plans worked out too well. We sold short and I delivered Landis’s stock until we could cover. We did all right.
Landis lost his nerve with his money and shot himself. I was sorry, because I had liked him and he had a wife and a boy. But he had no business in the game anyway. I was glad he hadn’t connected me with the break. No one else did either.
About six months after Landis was dead I took over the business as Barnes and Company. I saved a little money out of the wreck for Mrs. Landis and she was comfortable. She was a fine woman and my little girl Lucia played and went to dancing school with her boy.
Everything started out fine for me. Landis’s conservative reputation helped me out then on account of the time we had been together and I had plenty of money to back up anything I started. I had every chance in the world.
Then this hound Brentwood began. I had put him in charge of one of the departments in the new firm and he was making good. He had been there about three months when he came up to my house one night. He had been there before, at formal dinners once or twice when my wife had thought it necessary to entertain, but there had never been any friendship between us.
This night he asked for me and came into the library. I was feeling pretty good. I had put over a fair-sized deal that day and dinner had been comfortable. We didn’t have any guests.
I was surprised at the visit, but I didn’t let on. I offered him a drink and a cigar. He refused the cigar and lighted one of his own cigarettes. Always had ’em made for him, he told me. He didn’t waste any remarks about the weather or my health.
“When are you thinking of increasing the firm, Mr. Barnes?” he began.
That surprised me. Nothing I had ever said to him had indicated any intention of taking in any partners. I didn’t need any. All I needed was money and room. I had had two partners and I didn’t want any more. Landis was dead and King, too, had died about a month before. Apoplexy, I believe.
At first I started to bawl him out, but I thought better of it. Maybe he was trying to lead up to some idea with a joke. I had been with Landis too long and saw how much a man could lose by not listening to ideas.
“Do you want to buy in?” I asked him. If he did have any scheme I was ready to listen to it in the hope it was worth while.
He seemed to be surprised. He knew I had a temper. He had been in my office for a year. I guess he was all set for a fight right away. But he smiled and went on:
“Not buy exactly, but I think it can be arranged to suit us both.”
“Like hell, you do!” I yelled.
I was more than surprised. I thought he must have gone crazy, but I didn’t like his smile. He didn’t say anything, just sat there and smiled at me.
He didn’t look like a crazy man, and I began to wonder. All the time he had been with me he had been perfectly sane and he had never tried to joke. He was efficient and always on the job. What had happened to make him start out like he had was a mystery to me.
“What do you mean? Have you been drinking or dreaming?” I tried to keep myself in hand, because at the back of my brain something had started to stir. Men with brains don’t usually have crazy schemes, and I knew he hadn’t been drinking and he wasn’t the sort to dream without something to base it on.
I began to think of reasons for him getting up the nerve to say what he did. It took nerve and something else. I had never let him in on anything, and outside of the deal with King there hadn’t been anything that could really cause trouble. And that King deal was safe. I had written the only papers in the thing myself. After the deal was over King and I had taken care to burn them.
But he had to have some reason, and I was losing my temper again. All the while he just sat.
“Listen, Brentwood,” I told him then, “I don’t know what you are talking about, but the only satisfactory arrangement you can reach with me is to be ready to find another job by the first of the month. You are leaving us then.”
“I am afraid you are wrong, Mr. Barnes,” and he reached into his pocket.
He brought out a leather case and from it he took something and unfolded it very carefully.
I couldn’t make out what it was at first. It was black, about the size of a letter sheet, then I saw it was a piece of carbon paper.
Even then I didn’t get on right away.
“Did you ever see this before?” and he held it up for me to see.
The marks of the typewriter stood out. I couldn’t read them but I knew what it was. I remembered the morning of my deal with King and Brentwood being down at the office early. When I wrote the agreement with King I forgot all about the carbon paper. I really didn’t realize until then that the carbon would carry any record. I must have just dumped it into the waste-basket when I finished.
Brentwood was watching me, and he must have known what I was thinking.
“What is it anyway?” and I tried to keep my voice what it had been before. But I was beginning to get nervous. I had been learning things about Brentwood ever since he began the conversation.
“Do you want me to read it to you, Mr. Barnes?”
As he asked the question he smiled again. I had stood all of that smile I was going to. It must have made me lose my head. I couldn’t take a chance on that thing coming out with Landis not yet dead a year. I had to have that piece of carbon.
He sidestepped me as I rushed and grabbed me from behind. I told you he had played football.
“There is no need for excitement, Barnes,” he dropped the “Mr.” then. “You can’t get this away from me without killing me. You had better listen to reason.”
I saw I couldn’t manhandle him. I never have been a strong man, and his grip on my wrists was like iron.
“Well, say what you’ve got to say,” I managed to control my temper long enough to get it out.
“Suppose we outline a few possibilities first,” he began. “There isn’t a chance of convicting you of anything by this piece of carbon paper by itself. The district attorney couldn’t use it as evidence without something to back it up. But what happened to C & Q about nine months ago everyone knows. This little piece of paper tells what was going to happen before it ever did. It also mentions the matter of Landis’s stock. Old King may be dead, but he still has a grip on you.
“I don’t want to take this to the district attorney. I wouldn’t have to, as far as that goes. Public opinion would be enough, if I made this public. It would be an unpleasant scandal and it might be hard for me to get located profitably after having been so intimately connected with you. Besides there isn’t anything one-tenth so good as what you can give me. For a twenty per cent interest in the firm I will tuck this little piece of paper away in a safe deposit vault and the world will move merrily on.”