Lord Stranleigh Abroad by Robert Barr (best free novels .TXT) 📖

thought. When she spoke, her voice was exceedingly quiet.

"You complimented Nature a while ago, intending, as I suppose, to compliment me, but I think after all the greater compliment is your straight talk, which I admire, although I received it so petulantly. I shall make no apology, beyond saying that my mind is very much perturbed. Your surmise is absolutely correct. It isn't that I've spent the whole of my fortune and my friend's fortune in this conservation scheme. It is because I have built a model city on the heights above Powerville. I was promised assistance from the banks, which is now withheld, largely, I suspect, through the opposition of John L. Boscombe, a reputed millionaire. To all intents and purposes Boscombe and I are the owners of Powerville and the mills there, but although this place was founded and built up by my father, I am a minority stock-holder, and powerless. Boscombe exercises control. Any suggestions or protests of mine are ignored, for Boscombe, like my father, has little faith--no faith at all, in fact--in the business capacity of a woman.

"I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity. If there is the least hint of philanthropy in the project, every man of money fights shy of it."

"I am an exception," said Stranleigh, eagerly. "Philanthropy used to be a strong point with me, though I confess I was never very successful in its exercise. What humanitarian scheme is in your mind, Miss Maturin?"

Again she sat silent for some moments, indecision and doubt on her fair brow. Presently she said, as if pulling herself together--

"I will not tell you, Lord Stranleigh. You yourself have just admitted disbelief, and my plan is so fantastic that I dare not submit it to criticism."

"I suppose your new city is in opposition to the old town down in the valley? You alone are going to compete with Boscombe and yourself."

"That is one way of putting it."

"Very well, I am with you. Blow Boscombe! say I. I've no head for business, so I sha'n't need to take any advice. I shall do exactly what you tell me. What is the first move?"

"The first move is to set your brokers in New York at work, and buy a block of Powerville stock."

"I see; so that you and I together have control, instead of Boscombe?"

"Yes."

"That shall be done as quick as telegraph can give instructions. What next?"

"There will be required a large sum of money to liquidate the claims upon me incurred through the building of the city."

"Very good. That money shall be at your disposal within two or three days."

"As for security, I regret----"

"Don't mention it. My security is my great faith in Ned Trenton, also in yourself. Say no more about it."

"You are very kind, Lord Stranleigh, but there is one thing I must say. This may involve you in a law-suit so serious that the litigation of which Ned complains will appear a mere amicable arrangement by comparison."

"That's all right and doesn't disturb me in the least. I love a legal contest, because I have nothing to do but place it in the hands of competent lawyers. No personal activity is required of me, and I am an indolent man."

The second part of the programme was accomplished even sooner than Stranleigh had promised, but the first part hung fire. The brokers in New York could not acquire any Powerville stock, as was shown by their application to Miss Maturin herself, neither had their efforts been executed with that secrecy which Stranleigh had enjoined. He realised this when John L. Boscombe called upon him. He went directly to the point.

"I am happy to meet you, Lord Stranleigh, and if you'll excuse me, I'd like to say that you are more greatly in need of advice at this moment than any man in America."

"You are perfectly right, Mr. Boscombe. I am always in need of good advice, and I appreciate it."

"An application was made to me from New York for a block of stock. That stock is not for sale, but I dallied with the brokers, made investigations, and traced the inquiry to you."

"Very clever of you, Mr. Boscombe."

"I learn that you propose to finance Miss Constance Maturin, who is a junior partner in my business."

"I should not think of contradicting so shrewd a man as yourself, Mr. Boscombe. What do you advise in the premises?"

"I advise you to get out, and quick, too."

"If I don't, what are you going to do to me?"

"Oh, I shall do nothing. She will do all that is necessary. That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. If she had her way, she'd ruin the company inside a year with her hare-brained schemes; love of the dear people, and that sort of guff."

"I am sorry to hear that. I noticed no dementia on the part of Miss Maturin, who seemed to me a most cultivated and very charming young lady. You will permit me, I hope, to thank you for your warning, and will not be surprised that I can give you no decision on the spur of the moment. I am a slow-minded person, and need time to think over things."

"Certainly, certainly; personally I come to sudden conclusions, and once I make up my mind, I never change it."

"A most admirable gift. I wish I possessed it."

Lord Stranleigh said nothing of this interview to Constance Maturin, beyond telling her that the acquisition of stock appeared to be hopeless, as indeed proved to be the case.

"Boscombe must be a stubborn person," he said.

"Oh, he's all that," the girl replied, with a sigh. "He cares for one thing only, the making of money, and in that I must admit he has been very successful."

"Well, we've got a little cash of our own," said Stranleigh, with a laugh.

Miss Maturin and Mrs. Vanderveldt celebrated a national holiday by the greatest entertainment ever given in that district. The mills had been shut down for a week, and every man, woman and child in the valley city had been invited up to the new town on the heights. There was a brass band, and a sumptuous spread of refreshments, all free to the immense crowd. The ladies, for days before, visited everyone in the valley, and got a promise of attendance, but to make assurance doubly sure, an amazing corps of men was organised, equipped with motor cars, which scoured the valley from Powerville downwards, gathering in such remnants of humanity as for any reason had neglected to attend the show. Miss Maturin said she was resolved this entertainment should be a feature unique in the history of the State.

The shutting down of the mills had caused the water in the immense dam to rise, so that now the sluices at the top added to the picturesqueness of the scene by supplying waterfalls more than sixty feet high, a splendid view of which was obtainable from the new city on the heights. Suddenly it was noticed that these waterfalls increased in power, until their roar filled the valley. At last the whole lip of the immense dam began to trickle, and an ever augmenting Niagara of waters poured over.

"Great heavens!" cried Boscombe, who was present to sneer at these activities, "there must have been a cloud-burst in the mountains!"

He shouted for the foreman.

"Where are the tenders of the dam?" he cried. "Send them to lower those sluices, and let more water out."

"Wait a moment," said Constance Maturin, who had just come out of the main telephone building. "There can be no danger, Mr. Boscombe. You always said that dam was strong enough, when I protested it wasn't."

"So it is strong enough, but not----"

"Look!" she cried, pointing over the surface of the lake. "See that wave!"

"Suffering Noah and the Flood!" exclaimed Boscombe.

As he spoke, the wave burst against the dam, and now they had Niagara in reality. There was a crash, and what seemed to be a series of explosions, then the whole structure dissolved away, and before the appalled eyes of the sight-seers, the valley town crumpled up like a pack of cards, and even the tall mills themselves, that staggered at the impact of the flood, slowly settled down, and were engulfed in the seething turmoil of maddened waters.

For a time no voice could be heard in the deafening uproar. It was Boscombe who spoke when the waters began to subside.

"This," he cried, "is murder!"

He glared at Constance Maturin, who stood pale, silent and trembling.

"I told you she was mad," he roared at Stranleigh. "It is your money that in some devilish way has caused this catastrophe. If any lives are lost, it is rank murder!"

"It is murder," agreed Stranleigh, quietly. "Whoever is responsible for the weakness of that dam should be hanged!"



V.--IN SEARCH OF GAME.

The warm morning gave promise of a blistering hot day, as Lord Stranleigh strolled, in his usual leisurely fashion, up Fifth Avenue. High as the thermometer already stood, the young man gave no evidence that he was in the least incommoded by the temperature. In a welter of heated, hurrying people, he produced the effect of an iceberg that had somehow drifted down into the tropics. The New York tailor entrusted with the duty of clothing him quite outdistanced his London rival, who had given Lord Stranleigh the reputation of being the best-dressed man in England. Now his lordship was dangerously near the point where he might be called the best-dressed man in New York, an achievement worthy of a Prince's ambition.

His lordship, with nothing to do, and no companionship to hope for, since everyone was at work, strolled into the splendour of the University Club and sought the comparative coolness of the smoking room, where, seating himself in that seductive invitation to laziness, a leather-covered arm chair, he began to glance over the illustrated English weeklies. He had the huge room to himself. These were business hours, and a feeling of loneliness crept over him, perhaps germinated by his sight of the illustrated papers, and accentuated by an attempted perusal of them. They were a little too stolid for a hot day, so Stranleigh turned to the lighter entertainment of the American humorous press.

Presently there entered this hall of silence the stout figure of Mr. John L. Banks, senior attorney for the Ice Trust, a man well known to Stranleigh, who had often sought his advice, with profit to both of them. The lawyer approached the lounger.

"Hello, Banks, I was just thinking of you, reflecting how delightful it must be in this weather to be connected, even remotely, with the ice supply of New York."

Mr. Banks's panama hat was in one hand, while the other drew a handkerchief across his perspiring brow.

"Well, Stranleigh, you're looking very cool and collected. Enacting the part of the idle rich, I suppose?"

"No, I'm a specimen of labour unrest."

"Perhaps I can appease that. I'm open to a deal at fair compensation for you. If you will simply parade the streets in that leisurely fashion we all admire, bearing a placard 'Pure Ice Company,'