The Phantom Detective: Tycoon of Crime. Robert Wallace
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tense men sat at a long conference table, talking in low voices as they watched a wall-clock which showed that the hour of midnight was approaching.
A more diverse-looking group could not have been found. Yet these six men were all linked by mutual reputations in the field of science and engineering. All were famous throughout the country for their work in these lines.
Nor was that all that linked them.
There was another bond which seemed to hold them together as with some hidden magnet. A strange, furtive bond — one of conflicting fear and hope.
Near the unoccupied head of the table Vincent Brooks, one of the country’s leading electrical engineers, ran a gaunt hand over his long, rugged face, his dark, hard eyes narrowing beneath beetling brows.
NEXT TO HIM A WIRY MAN with a shock of grey hair that kept getting into his eyes, hunched tensely forward. Leland Sprague, a surveyor.
Beside those two sat Joseph Ware and Paul Talbert. Ware was a quiet, well-built, grey-haired man who was a specialist in waterways and dams. Paul Talbert, a shoring engineer, was broad-shouldered, with a wind-burned face, a military mustache, blond hair and clear, far-seeing eyes.
The fifth man of the group, solid-built but pallid-faced, with crows-feet under his eyes, toyed nervously with a pencil. He was a geologist named Donald Vaughan.
Finally, running his hand over his high, thin-haired skull, was John Eldridge, another surveyor.
“Well, gentlemen?” Paul Talbert spoke, sitting erect, his mustache bristling. “I still say the time is opportune! Everything has worked out as we planned it! We have only to go ahead.” His eyes gleamed.
“What about the threats?” Joseph Ware demurred. The quiet-looking waterways man’s voice was low and tense, and only his eyes showed the panic he kept from his quiet face, “Remember, I’ve been getting them. And now that we’ve learned what happened to Truesdale and Garth —”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Ware!” Sprague broke in, a little shrilly, pushing back his shock of grey hair. “They haven’t found that plane yet! We don’t knew for sure.
Besides, it was undoubtedly an accident, that disaster!”
“Undoubtedly.” Talbert agreed. “And while it means a delay, we can still go ahead as we planned! This is no time for faint heartedness! Don’t forget what’s in this for all of us if it works out!”
There was a slight stir around the table. Greed, that dark driving urge which at times can overcome the best of men, flashed in several eyes. Greed — and fear!
“I agree with Talbert!” Vincent Brooks, the rugged-faced electric engineer, clipped. He laughed harshly. “And I have been warned myself by these strange phone messages! But whoever this Tycoon of Crime is, he can’t know our secret. Only we know it at this present moment! And no one but ourselves will ever know it fully!”
“Lord, if it ever leaked out!” Donald Vaughan strained forward, the crows-feet twitching under his eyes. “If this Tycoon of Crime suspected it he could ruin us all!” He shook his head. “And if the Government ever knew —”
He broke off abruptly, as if not daring to finish. And again the current of invisible fear coursed about the table.
“We’ve got to keep our heads!” Eldridge said, his thin-haired head bobbing. “We’re in this thing together no matter what happens.”
Like an invisible curtain a hush closed down on the group. Lips clamped suddenly tight. Eyes hid the emotions which a moment before had shown stark and clear.
The frosted glass door leading from an anteroom had opened unceremoniously. Three more men came in.
The one in advance, a heavy-set man, florid of face, his head bald save for a fringe of iron-grey hair, strode toward the table.
“Good evening, gentlemen! Glad to see all of you got here early. I hope you have made yourselves at home here in our executive office.”
In the sudden silence, the six scientists heard the muffled but continuous bustle of sound outside the offices; the movement of hundreds of feet; and, further away, an occasional clang of bells, a hiss of air-brakes.
This big room, the New York office of the Empire and Southwest Railway, was situated on the gallery floor of Manhattan’s biggest railway terminal, the Grand Central, famous throughout a continent.
TALBERT WAS THE FIRST to speak, in a quiet, hard voice, to the rugged man who had strode forward.
“Hello, Strickland! We’ve been waiting for you!”
James Strickland, vice-president of the Empire and Southwest Railways, moved to the head of the table and took the chair there.
The second newcomer, Charles Jenson, secretary of the railway company, a thin-haired, bespectacled man with a mild, timid manner, also joined the gathering.
And if these two high railway officials seemed almost like aliens in the conclave of scientists, the third man who had entered at their heels was out of place with both groups.
He stood alone near the door — a big, broad man with grizzled, grey-peppered hair. A man who gave the impression of dominant strength.
“Oh, sit down, Mr. Harvey!” Strickland said to him, gesturing as if just remembering the amenities. “You gentlemen must know Mr. Andrew Harvey, president of the Harvey Airlines!”
Tensing again, the eyes of the six scientists swiveled to the visitor.
He grinned — a hard, tight grin — meeting their glances levelly.
“I’ll stand,” he said in a booming voice. “What I have to say won’t take long. I’m here on business — cold, plain business! I’m here to make a cash offer for this railway! While Strickland and Jenson have given me little encouragement, I thought I might find the rest of you more interested!”
No electric shock could have caused a more startled reaction. Their eyes widening, for a moment the six scientists seemed speechless.
Then Strickland spoke, as if for the startled men.
“This is most irregular, Mr. Harvey! In the absence of the line’s president, Mr. Garrison, who as you know is in St. Louis —”
“I’ll deal with Garrison when he gets back!” Andrew Harvey snapped. “Right now I’m dealing with all of you here. That’s enough!”
A mirthless smile curved Talbert’s lips beneath his mustache. “You seem to be laboring under a misconception, Mr. Harvey,” he said. “We are merely technicians working for the Empire and Southwest Railway.”
Harvey’s laugh was harsh, contemptuous. “You’re wasting your breath! I know you’re the chief stockholders of this railroad, all of you! You’ve all acquired big blocks of shares! And I’m here to buy you out — to take those shares at better than their present market value!”
The silence was ominous. The six men, rigid now, turned fierce glances to Strickland and Jenson. Strickland blurted something. The mild Jenson spoke in a meek voice.
“I’m sure Mr. Harvey didn’t learn that from us.” The secretary’s tone was conciliating. “These things leak out, you know.”
“I make it my business to know such things!” Harvey said shortly. “And I know you men, with your technical skill, are trying to put this railway on its feet! But it isn’t worth the effort. The only use for it now is if it can be run in conjunction, as an auxiliary, to my own airline! That’s why I want it. If you think you can run it in competition, you’re sadly mistaken!” His eyes narrowed to slits, his face grew grim. “Even the sabotaging of my new Chicago transport plane isn’t going to cripple my growing airline!”
There was a gasped intake of breath; and indignant scrape of chairs.
Joseph Sprague, the wiry surveyor, was on his feet then, his shock