But the box had more to offer: it had a false bottom. The little fences that formed the compartments also deceived the eye. The fences, or panels, could be slid out of their slots, the contents of the box dumped on a desk, the box turned upside down, and by gently tapping the exterior bottom of the box, George would cause the interior “floor” of the box to fall out, and with it his secret treasure, two five-dollar gold pieces and a ten-dollar banknote. The possession of so much cash could have led to his expulsion, since no explanation he could give would be satisfactory to the masters or to Arthur Francis Ferris.
George Lockwood—who went through four years at St. Bartholomew’s without a nickname—had been given his box in the general distribution a week after his arrival at the school. For the first four months he used the box to protect the kind of personal possessions that roommates borrow—soap, hair combs, shoe blacking—and since George had no need to have recourse to the box for solace, and since he always knew without reexamination what was in the box, the only fun he had with it was in keeping it locked and unlocking it in private. Then, a few weeks after being given the box, he learned that masters sometimes opened the boxes without warning their owners, and this violation of privacy so angered him that he studied his box more intently, until he worked out a plan to defeat them. At Christmastime he took his box home with him and for fifty cents Mr. Dunkelberger, a Swedish Haven carpenter-and-joiner, fashioned the compartments and the false bottom. Mr. Dunkelberger was an artist in his line and had made many such hiding places in desks and bureaus and trunks, and he enjoyed the conspiratorial nature of George’s commission. (“Vat you keep in it, Cheorchie? Luff letters, say?”) George put his Christmas presents from his Hoffner grandparents—the gold pieces—and the ten-dollar bill from his father in the false bottom of the box, and returned to St. Bartholomew’s with a gleefully defiant attitude toward the snooping masters. He would open his box once a week, and from time to time he could tell by the rearrangement of his possessions that a master had been going through the box, but Mr. Dunkelberger had done his work so skillfully that in all the four years George was at St. Bartholomew’s, the hidden money was never discovered.
It could be said that George Lockwood made no close friendships at St. Bartholomew’s, or, with equal truth, that he had made many. He changed friends as often as he changed roommates. Only in the last year were the boys allowed to choose roommates, and George, permitted by the rules to choose two roommates, chose only one and left the selection of the other up to the head prefect. The one he chose, and who accepted his invitation, was Sterling Downs. In the beginning George had not liked Sterling any more than Sterling liked him; but in their second year at St. Bartholomew’s they had got along somewhat better; and in their third year George felt sorry for Sterling Downs, as did all the boys in the school. In that year Sterling’s father committed suicide.
The joint speculative account maintained by Harry Penn Downs and Abraham Lockwood had gone from the original $10,000 to as much as $600,000 in less than ten years, largely, but not entirely, through purchases and sales of stocks that Downs had studied. At unstated intervals Abraham Lockwood would suggest that they liquidate their holdings, and he would take his profits, reinvest them in other securities or real estate, and wait until Downs came to him again with a new proposition. Abraham Lockwood never refused to go in with Downs, but he did not always go in for the amount Downs asked; he demurred sometimes because he regarded the particular stock as too dangerously speculative, sometimes because his money was tied up in other ventures; but there was scarcely any doubt that Downs was a successful speculator. The figures $10,000 and $600,000 were basic; the larger figure did not nearly represent the sum that had been divided between the partners. In actuality they had each taken more than a million out of the stock market during their partnership, and $600,000 was the high point of the account as of the year 1889.
The two men had made money together from the start, but they had been making larger amounts of money during the latter years, when relations between them were less cordial than ever before. Downs knew no reason for his partner’s attitude, since he could not have divined that his friend Locky had been offended by Sterling Downs’s rudeness to George Lockwood. He attributed the coolness— when he thought about it—to Lockwood’s preoccupation with his other business enterprises, and so long as Lockwood continued to put up 60 percent of the cash for their speculations, Downs was willing to dispense with the amenities. Not that Lockwood was overtly rude; but their meetings latterly had no social character, did not occur so much at mealtimes. At one point, briefly, Downs contemplated a gesture toward improving social relations: his wife had never met Adelaide Lockwood, and his only meeting with her had been at Adelaide’s wedding. But Martha Sterling Downs was not the most gracious hostess, and she would be at her least gracious while entertaining for an upstate woman who had her trouble with her v’s and w’s and had probably never heard of the Philadelphia Assembly. Downs quickly dismissed the social idea, and went on meeting Lockwood at their offices in Philadelphia and Swedish Haven.
At these meetings Lockwood usually had an accurate estimate of the condition of their joint account. “You’ve made thirty thousand, I’ve made twenty,” he would say. “Let’s take our profit now.” He seldom was insistent when Downs would urge their staying in a stock a little while longer, but there were exceptions to this amenability and Lockwood could be stubborn. When that occurred, Downs would yield, and there was no sharp difference between the partners until the spring of 1890.
They met in Downs’s office, and Lockwood wasted no time. “Harry, let’s sell our sugar stock,” he said.
“Why? It looks pretty good to me. We’re going to clean up in that, Locky. That’s one of the best things we’ve ever had.”
“Haven’t I got any say in the matter?”
“Of course you have. But in this case you’re making a mistake. Do you know anything about Havemeyer?”
“I don’t know anything about Havemeyer. But I know about the Bank of America and those other banks failing, not to mention the life insurance company, also here in Philadelphia. I want to get out and stay out for a while. You can do what you please, but let me have my share now. It comes to a hundred and twenty thousand.”
“I can’t,” said Harry Penn Downs.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t got it.”
“What’s the matter, you haven’t got it?”
“We have no sugar stock at all. I lied to you. I didn’t buy any. This was the one time you shouldn’t have asked me.”
“It sounds like the one time I should have asked you.”
“No. I’ve always been honest before, Locky, and I’ve made money for both of us.”
“What did you do with the money?”
“Well, it’s none of your damn business as long as I admit I’m a crook. But I’ll tell you. I lost it playing poker.”
“You lost $150,000 playing poker?”
“More than that.”
“Where? Who with?”
“At the Union League, never mind who with, although I suppose you could find that out if you tried hard enough.”