The Menace
by David H. Keller
Chapter II: The Gold Ship
FRANCE HAS OFFERED TO PAY HER ENTIRE DEBT.”
That announcement, made to the Cabinet by the President of the United States, was certainly sufficient cause for the ripple of suppressed surprise and excitement that the gentlemen of that body showed. Yet these officials remained silent, for it was evident that the President had not finished with his announcement. After a rather deliberate pause, he continued:
“IN ADDITION SHE HAS OFFERED TO ASSUME AND PAY THE ENTIRE DEBT OF ALL THE ALLIES AND OF GERMANY TO THE UNITED STATES."
And still the Cabinet remained quiet.
“IF WE ACCEPT THE PROPOSITION MADE BY FRANCE, NOT ONE NATION IN THE WORLD WILL OWE THE UNITED STATES ONE DOLLAR.”
The Cabinet, now feeling at liberty, started a bombardment of questions.
“What are their conditions?” asked the Secretary of Commerce.
“Where are they going to get the money?” snapped the Attorney-General.
“There’s a nigger in the woodpile!” exclaimed the Secretary of Agriculture, who was from Arkansas, and though very brilliant, reverted to the homely language of the Ozarks when he became excited.
“I am unable to answer your question,” said the President. “All I know is that we have received this offer from the French Government, sent through their Ambassador, to our Secretary of State. They propose to pay the entire debt at once in ‘gold. All they want is our statement of willingness to accept their proposition. We have communicated with Great Britain and Italy, and all we can find out is that they have agreed to let France pay their debt to us on terms and conditions that they do not care to tell us. Evidently they think that so long as we are paid, the details of the agreement between them and France are not our affair. I have called this conference for an answer. What shall we say to France? First I want the Secretary of the Treasury to tell us just what such a payment will mean to us.”
The gentleman called on took his time before beginning to speak. He deliberately lit a cigarette and took several puffs before he broke the silence. At last he said:
“No one can tell what will happen when a debt of over fourteen billion is paid at one time. I say no one can tell, because it has never been done before. It is true that we were able to place the world under such an obligation to. us, but we took years to do it and much of it represents foodstuffs and munitions of war. We did not expect that debt would ever be paid. In truth, we did not really want it to be paid: merely wanted the world to remember that it owed it to us and would make an honest attempt to pay the interest. The French government proposes to pay the entire sum at one time in bar gold. Such a transaction would put practically all the gold of the world at our command. It would enable us to pay all the obligations of the government, retire all our bonds, solve the Mississippi flood problem, pay all the debt that the various states have contracted and do a few other things. It would create an age of prosperity: everyone would be able to sell all he has, either in goods or labor. And we would have to be very careful about the entire matter, so as to avert a panic, for at the end of such a panic a group of very rich and unscrupulous men would grow up over night. Personally, I cannot see how we can refuse the offer. At the same time, I am very much afraid of the consequences. It will make us the richest and at once the best hated nation in the world. No doubt our army and navy would have to be greatly enlarged.”
The Cabinet talked the matter over and seemed to be able to arrive at no positive decision. Finally, the Postmaster General asked:
“The thing I want to know is, where does this gold come from?”
“I was expecting that question,” replied the Secretary of the Treasury, “and to be perfectly frank, I do not know. There is a great deal of gold in the world, gold that has been buried and lost. After the Franco- Prussian War, France paid a large sum collected from the stockings of the French peasants. But no one knew that France had enough to pay the debt of the world to the United States.”
“Make them tell us where they got it!” said the gentleman from Arkansas.
“That is hardly a question for one gentleman or nation to ask another,” replied the President.
“No,” agreed the Secretary of State. “But we could find out.”
At this point, the Secretary of War stood up and asked for the undivided attention of all those present.
“Last year, you will recall, there was a terrific explosion in New York City which destroyed the largest building there and killed over a thousand of the richest citizens. I was called upon to send some troops to aid in policing the city, for the excitement, especially among the colored population, was very intense. I personally assumed charge of some of the details. I heard some very interesting things. Of course they may just have been rumors; I had no way of investigating them at that time. I do know, however, that the financiers were greatly disturbed over certain phases of the situation. There seemed to be a large amount of unexplained wealth pouring into the city. The President of the New York Bankers’ Association knew the details, but he was suffering from the loss of a beloved daughter-in-law at the time and I did not want to disturb him. There may be some connection between that disturbance and this question: in each instance, there seems to be a large amount of gold from some unknown source.”
“What was the final result in New York?” asked the President.
“Nobody seems to know — but in this explosion practically all the parties under suspicion were killed and their building and records destroyed. Of course the Secret Service of the Atlantic Coast took all the credit, but I understand that it was really a detective from San Francisco who deserved all the credit. In some way he was connected with the explosion, and, while no blame was directly attached to him, still he left the city as soon as he could. In fact, he only made a verbal report, and a very short one at that. Everyone was so excited that they let him go. Of course the Secret Service knows him — ”
“T WOULD suggest, Mr. President,” interrupted the gentleman from Arkansas, “that we delay answering this offer till we have a chance to get the man from San Francisco to tell us what he knows about the New York affair.”
Everyone agreed that this was the wise course to follow and the Cabinet adjourned. Before they left, however, the President impressed on them the necessity of keeping the entire matter strictly a secret. He was afraid that even a rumor might cause a sharp disturbance in the stock market.
So, through various channels, the message was sent to Taine.
That gentleman was somewhat gloomy when he entered the office of the Chief of the Secret Service in San Francisco.
“I have good news for you, Taine,” said the Chief. Taine started to smile, as he replied:
“Have you decided to accept my resignation?” “Resignation nothing! Orders for you to go to Washington to see the President.”
“If it has anything to do with that New York affair, I quit — right now. Nothing more than that would be needed for me to quit — pension or no pension. There was a girl there, Florabella was her name, and she used some kind of a perfume — it hung to me like a lost soul — and Mrs. Taine did not like it — that is, she liked it well enough to be hunting for it ever since for her personal use — and she did not like to think of another woman using it around me. One more perfumed woman and my happy home becomes a harpie’s Hell. You let me stay here and work with the bootleggers and Chinamen. Send somebody else to Washington.
The Chief shook his head.
“Nothing doing. This telegram says that they want you and no one else. You haven’t lost your morale, have you?”
“Oh! My morale is all right, but I haven’t any enthusiasm left after that New York experience. I have shot gunmen in my life. They had a gun and I had a gun and I got them before they got me — but this other affair in New York was different. Of course I cannot ever be positive — that is, I cannot be sure that I killed those thousand people in the hundred story building, but I do know that I pressed those buttons and in about two minutes Hell broke out in that part of town.”
“But they were going to kill you!”
“Maybe so — maybe so. We shall never know about that. Personally, I doubt that the snake was large enough to swallow a man. Of course, there might be one big enough, but how could they make the snake do it on request — before a thousand people? That part seems unreasonable. It might have been a mechanical snake. How about that?”
“Well, they are all dead now. There is nothing more to be afraid of as far as they are concerned.” “Looks that way: but perhaps the leaders escaped. None of the bodies were identified — there might have been some way of escape. That was a smart bunch of crooks, Chief, and they made me feel like a prune. Oh! They were going to kill me some way, and I don’t want a second dose of their medicine.”
But the Chief insisted that Taine would have to go to Washington.
And it ended in Taine’s saying goodbye to his family and a little black dog. Once again he started eastward, knowing nothing about the problem except that he was to see the President of the United States.
HE was met at the Union Station by a “plainclothes” man and from there he was taken to the White House. Soon he was ushered into the President’s office and introduced to that gentleman and the Cabinet members, and seated at the President’s right.
“Mr. Taine,” said the Secretary of the Treasury, “we understand that you were working in New York at the time of the explosion of the Center Internationale. In fact, it is stated that you were one of the prominent figures, perhaps the most prominent one, connected with that problem. We want you to tell us about it— just the main outline of the story now."
“There is not much to tell,” said Taine, modestly. “There was a group of negroes who called themselves “The Powerful Ones.” It was their idea that they could turn the whole colored race white, and somehow they had enough wealth to at least think of buying the whole of New York City. I met the ringleaders the night of the explosion and they told me a good deal of what they were going to do in the future — you see they thought they were going to kill me that night, so they figured that it was perfectly safe to tell me.”
“Did they tell you where they got their wealth?” asked the President.
“Yes, from the ocean. They said they had a ship with a twelve-inch tube running through it. The ocean water ran in one end and through a laboratory and out the other end, and they took the gold out of it. at least, that is what they said. It seems they had an expert chemist doing the work for them.”
“That does not seem possible,” replied the President. “There is no gold in sea water. Suppose we send for one of the chemists from the Department of Agricullture. We might as well settle that part of the problem now.”
The chemist was sent for. In the meanwhile, he President passed the cigars around. Taine refused.
“I do not smoke, thank you,” he said; “the tobacco injures the enamel of the teeth and once that is injured the teeth soon decay: then the destruction is irreparable.”
The chemist was a wrinkled old man who had spent his lifetime pouring various different reagents into test tubes in order to see and smell the results. He lost no time in answering their question, and snorted disdainfully at such ignorance.
“I thought that everybody knew there was gold in sea water. It is in the form of gold chloride and is present to the extent of one millionth of one per cent. Certainly it can be extracted by electrolysis, but it would cost five hundred dollars for every dollar’s worth of gold you would get. Lots of people have tried to invent a cheap process, but it has never been done on a successful commercial basis. Anything else? If not, I’ll be hurrying back to the laboratory.” “Just one minute, Professor,” interrupted the Secretary of War. “Do you suppose that the time will come when man will discover how to make gold?”
“Now you are talking about something interesting,” replied the old man, in a sprightly tone. “When you go into alchemy you turn an everyday chemist into a dreamer of dreams. For thousands of years chemists have been trying to do just that. Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly described the exact process in thirteen steps. Athotas the Mysterious was always able to supply his needs and taught the art of making gold to his pupil and friend Cagliostro. They either made the gold or were able to cause others to believe they made it. The arguments pro and con are difficult— it is not a question of chemistry. It goes into metaphysics and philosophy.”
“Please, Professor, stop talking so much and tell me this: Do you think that it will ever be done? Have you ever met anyone who thought he could do it?”
“No, it will never be done — that is, I do not think it will ever be done. But I had a young man working under me some years ago who did a good deal of work in that line. In' fact, he seemed to be of a rather extraordinary intelligence for a negro. He knew a lot about metals, but we had to discharge him —caught him pilfering one day — pity though, because he really was a wonderful metallurgist. I think his idea was that if he could only divide the atom into electrons and protons and then put enough of these together in the right proportion, he could make gold. He did make something that looked like gold, but it wasn’t. I tried to get his confidence, but he was suspicious of me; anyway, he left before anything definite was established. Since then, I have been so busy working with corn rust and one thing and another, that I have not had time to do any work on gold, let alone think about alchemy. Why, men go mad if they think too much about it.”
“You can return to your laboratory, Professor. Thank you very much,” said the President. After the old man had gone, the Chief Executive turned to his Cabinet.
“This has been a profitable meeting, gentlemen. I am neither a scientist nor a detective, but I believe we are beginning to see the light. There is a gold ship, but it does not take the gold out of the ocean. It is simply a floating laboratory and the chemist is no doubt the negro who was discharged for stealing from the Professor. He is one of this group of criminal negroes and he supplied the gold they were going to buy New York with. Failing ill their plans to turn the negroes in America white, he and his confederates have in some way induced the European nations to let them pay the debt. Perhaps they asked for social equality in return. But I doubt England’s willingness to grant that. They will pay the debt, in gold, and then they will combine and make some other metal, like platinum, the standard. They will refuse to trade with us unless we accept the same standard, which will ruin us commercially. Our gold will be valueless and it will take us years, maybe centuries, before we could resume our place in the world. We could not even use a gold standard in America, if it became known that gold could be made like sugar or alcohol. If we accept the offer, we will be ruined; if we refuse, we will invite the ridicule of the world and perhaps a devastating war. What is your suggestion?”
“I believe,” replied the Secretary of State, “that we should accept the offer, conditionally: that is, we will accept it when it is delivered in New York City. Suggest that the gold ship be guarded on its voyage by a combined fleet of warships from all the nations.”
“But I thought we did not want the gold!” said the Secretary of the Treasury.
“We don’t, but it would never do to say so outright. We will accept this offer, but the gold ship will sink on the way over.”
“Excuse me,” said Taine of San Francisco, “but how do you know it will?”
“I know, because you are going to sink it — on a clear day, with a calm sea — you will sink it and not a single person will be drowned. Then you are going to spend your spare time in hunting up this gold maker and put him out of business.”
The statement caused the greatest excitement.
Everybody talked at once — that is, everybody except Taine. He simply stared at the man who had proposed such a programme. The Cabinet members, however, seemed to feel that this was a very favorable solution to the problem.
“But how am I to do that?” Taine asked.
The President threw away his cigar and coughed rather nervously before he replied.
“You will use your own discretion, Mr. Taine. I do not think it would be wise for any of us to know just what you do or how you are doing it. All we want is results — yes — that is all— results. We will help you all we can and you can call on any of the departments for aid in any way. You just go and sink that ship on the way over — and sink it deep. I understand there is one place where the ocean is five miles deep — that would be the place of our choice.”
“It is a wonderful opportunity to serve your country, Mr. Taine,” said the Secretary of State.
“And just think,” interpolated the Postmaster General, “you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have done something that no other man in the world has ever done before.”
“I never thought of that,” said Taine. “That will be of great help to me when I am going down with the ship, five miles down.”
“Ah! You don’t get the idea,” growled the man from Arkansas. “Use your imagination, man! After the ship goes down, you swim to the U. S. battleship and get saved. How do you suppose you are going to finish the job if you get drowned when it is only half done?”
“Got any more suggestions?” asked Mr. Taine, of San Francisco.
“Not one,” replied the President. “I will see that you are at once provided with all necessary credentials, and all details of every kind can be attended to by the Chief of the United States Secret Service. That entire service is at your command. You can draw on the Treasury for any sums you deem necessary. We will assign as many of our operators to help you as you require. The entire resources of the Government are at your disposal' secretly — but under no circumstances can we openly assist you. If you succeed, you will find that your reward will be commensurate with the gravity of the undertaking, and now we will adjourn and I beg of you one and all, to observe the strictest secrecy in regard to the entire affair.”
Taine went directly from the White House to the laboratories of the Department of Agriculture. There he spent several hours with the old Professor. The next day he visited the Secretary of the Treasury and talked over finances and some other details. He immediately left for Cornell University where his letters of introduction placed the entire department of Metallurgy at his disposal and brought to that college the most brilliant specialists from the Westinghouse Electrical Company. This act also involved consultations with men from the Naval Department and Cramp’s Ship Yards in Philadelphia. Following all this Taine disappeared.
THE Secretary of State, acting for the United States and for the President, wrote to the European nations, through proper channels, that their offer to pay the war debt was accepted, with thanks. He asked that the gold be concentrated at some port in France, placed on a battleship and be escorted to New York by a fleet composed of battleships of all the nations. At New York it would be weighed, and the representatives of the allied nations would at once be given their receipts.
Some weeks after this communication had been sent and acknowledged, the Ambassador from Great Britain called at the White House, by appointment, to eat breakfast with the President and the Secretary of State. The Ambassador was a tall, white haired aristocrat, with a hooked nose, and a decided limp (his leg having been broken during the World’s War). While somewhat unused to such fare, he seemed to enjoy the buckwheat cakes, honey, soft boiled eggs, broiled mackerel, lamb chops, doughnuts and coffee. In fact, the occasion caused him to slightly loosen both his coat and his dignity. The waiters were dismissed and then the President said:
“Well?”
The Ambassador almost smiled.
“Of course all this is strictly informal, Gentlemen, but at the same time you can rely on me as representing my Government in what I say. We could not at this time deliberately insult all of Europe, so we were forced to accept the offer of this group of rich men who proposed to underwrite the entire war debt. All we asked was that the gold we were to pay the United States, our share of the debt to you, be brought to London, and be there repacked before it was taken to France for the final shipment. This was agreed to by the powers, and the gold is in London at the present time.
“Blood is thicker than water, and my Government did not fancy the looks of the transaction. We found that some of the nations had granted large pieces of land to these financiers, but even worse than that, several of the powers had secretly promised social and political equality to any of the negro race that might settle in their country. Fancy that!
“We wanted to pay you if the other nations did, and all these people asked of us was an issue of two per cent, long term bonds, but we just felt there was something wrong with that gold. Because we could not find out what was wrong with it, did not make us feel any easier about it. For this reason my Government decided to keep the gold they had borrowed and send over our own gold from our reserve. It took just about all we had on the island to do it, but we finally raised the amount and we know that it is all real gold. Next month we are going to send it to France — and we just wanted you to know that we did the right thing. The friendship between the two great nations of the world is far more precious than a few billions in gold, and if there is anything wrong with the gold we borrowed, we wanted to be the ones to suffer. I wish to state also that we have been approached with the proposition that platinum be made the monetary standard in place of gold. So far we have been non-committal in our answer, as we could not imagine the reason for thinking of such a change, when gold has been the standard for so many years.”
The President tried to control his feelings, but it was some time before he could reply.
“That is a splendid way for your Government to act. For weeks we have been distressed over this affair and our worry was increased by the knowledge that Great Britain was a party to the transaction. Your statement this morning shows me that no matter what happens, we can depend upon your friendship. I trust that the two nations will always remain in harmony about the great things in the life of this world, and together try to keep the world in peace and, at least in outward harmony."
Soon after, the Ambassador left. The President and the Secretary of State remained seated, looking strangely at each other. Finally the President broke the silence:
“Have you any idea where Taine is?”
“Not the least. He has just disappeared.”
“As I remember it we instructed him to sink the gold ship.”
“Exactly.”
“Of course we did not know at that time what we know now.”
“We certainly did not.”
“If he sinks the ship now, it will take with it those billions of actual gold from the banks of Great Britain.”
“It will. Of course it will.”
“There may be something wrong with some of the gold but this from London will be sunk.”
“Yes.”
“It will be lost. No good to them or to us. Better find Taine and tell him to leave that ship alone. We can take chances on anything rather than have England think that we have been false to her.”
“I’ll try to find Taine — but — I have tried for some weeks to locate him and he is gone. Do you think we ought to notify France to be on her guard because we have found a plot to sink the ship.”
“We cannot do that without giving them some reason. But Taine cannot sink the ship without being near it or on it. Suppose we send a dozen men from San Francisco, who have worked with him, to France. If they find him, we can at least ascertain how far he has gone with his plans.”
This seemed such a good idea to both of them that a telegram was despatched to San Francisco, and eight detectives were rushed across the continent and over to France on the fastest cruiser. They did their best — and failed.
IN the meantime a fleet of warships were gathering in the harbor of Bordeaux to act as a convoy for the French steamer which was to carry the golden treasure over to the United States. Most of the nations were only represented by one battleship but Great Britain, France and the United States each had two armed and floating fortresses. The treasure was placed in the middle of the ship in a specially constructed strong room. It was placed in small boxes, each holding two hundred pounds of gold and on the outside of each box was a number and the name of the nation it was from.
On the steamer were representatives of each nation and in addition several of the small group of bankers who had advanced the loan to the allied nations and Germany. These representatives were under instructions to stay with the gold till it was accepted and receipted for by the Treasury of the United States.
While this was a financial transaction absolutely unique in the history of the world, it had been kept such a close secret that the newspapers could only guess what was behind the gathering of dignitaries and battleships in Bordeaux.
The gentlemen, who were to make the voyage together tried to be ostensibly friendly with each other but instinctively broke up into the little groups, Baltic, Mediterranean, Slavic. They were all friendly to the bankers headed by the unknown and enigmatic Count Sebastian. They believed that any group of financiers who could underwrite such a loan, had unlimited funds in reserve, and each man had been instructed by his country to make the best of the voyage and endeavor to secure additional loans for the financing of another war.
Count Sebastian was a striking man in many ways. His deadly white skin stamped him as a recluse, one who spent hours in study out of the sunshine. Yet he was strong, well built and seemingly a young man, even though his hair was snow white. His three partners on the ship were all aristocrats in appearance and
strikingly like him in many ways. They all had white hair. They were all educated and possessed a maximum of culture. It seemed to the English representative that they resembled the average Oxford graduate in many ways.
Just a few days before the day set for leaving Bordeaux, Count Sebastian astonished the French Government by announcing that his group of bankers had invited several ladies to, make the trip as their guests, and that the two married bankers would bring their wives with them as chaperones. He suggested that the French and Italian representatives take their wives and daughters, if possible, and especially invited the daughter of the President of France to make the trip as the guest of their syndicate. Apparently the trip was to be a social one in many ways. The idea pleased the nations so much, that by the time the gold ship and its convoy of battleships left the French port, over thirty ladies were on board to make the voyage one long to be remembered.
No one knew just why this suggestion to take the ladies with them had been proposed by the group headed by Count Sebastian. Even his three associates had been surprised when he made his final statement in regard to it, but for several years they had obeyed him in every detail, having learned that by doing so they were sure to be successful in every venture.
The real reason for the decision was the fact that three weeks before the ship sailed Count Sebastian had met a lady. This was not at all unusual for one of the richest men in the world and a bachelor. The unusual part about this lady was that she was rich, had wonderful jewels, a past full of rumor and mystery and, finally, she did not care at all whether she ever saw the Count again or not. In fact, for the first week of their acquaintance, the only time the Count could even see her was at the theater or restaurant.
There were a thousand women in France who would have been nice to the Count had they the opportunity, and it was for this reason that he was driven to desperation by the coldness of this unknown stranger. Of course he wanted what he could not get: and, try as he could, this particular lady seemed to be particularly unattainable.
During the second week of their acquaintance, she permitted him to take her out riding, accompanied by her maid. After this she allowed him to come to her table at the restaurant one evening and share a bottle of wine with her. At the beginning of the third week, with the sailing of the gold ship but six days distant, he took her out riding again and, maid or no maid, proposed marriage to her.
She started to cry.
The maid started to cry.
But when the Count left her at her hotel, she whispered a request that he call on her that evening. Feeling that success was just within his grasp, he prepared for the call by purchasing an elegant solitaire and a necklace of matchless pearls.
She was waiting for him in the small parlor of her suite in the hotel. He was also astonished to find her dressed in the veiled habit of the Hindoos. Without waiting for any questions, she asked him to be seated.
“I do not want you to think, Count Sebastian, that I am not fully aware of the honor you showed me this afternoon by asking me to become your wife. I cried merely because I felt that you would regret your decision when you learned all about me. It was for that reason that I asked you to call on me to-night My father was French, an adventurer, while my mother was a Malay. Of course they are considered Caucasians, but three generations back there was colored blood in my father’s family and no matter how you look at it, I am not a white woman. We are wealthy. I suppose that my father and mother have no real idea how much they are worth. They wanted me to come to France, pose as a one hundred per cent white woman, marry a white man, and forget them. When I first met you, I thought that the opportunity had come, but when I saw how devoted you were to me, I could not think of living such a lie — and though it ends in separation — better that, than a life of fraud.”
THE Count knelt beside her and kissed her hand.
“My dear lady,” he whispered, “you have worried yourself to death and all absolutely without reason. I love you and I am going to keep on loving you. Your ancestry makes no difference to me — because I am a colored man myself.”
“What?” said the astonished woman.
“Exactly that. My associates are all colored. Only some years ago we took a special treatment that gave us white skins. I will tell you all about that some day. We hoped to turn the race white — but something went wrong with our plans. If you are a negro, so am I. Your skin is white and mine is too. We have both been honest. Now, will you marry me?”
“But, Count, you are going to America in a few days. You have told me that it is the end of one of your greatest business transactions. You must forget me till you return from New York.”
“Why cannot you come with me — on the boat?” “How would that look? The only woman! Surely that would not be proper.”
“But suppose there should be other women? Would you come if I invited twenty or thirty others?” “That would be different, but do you think they would treat me as their equal, socially?”
“I am sure they will. You leave that to me, and prepare for the trip. Now, will you let me put this ring on your finger?”
In answer she extended her left hand, well covered with jewels, but with the left hand ring finger bare. The engagement ring was tenderly placed on it, accompanied by many kisses. Then the rope of pearls was examined with many exclamations of delight, and finally an engagement was made and a hurried trip to Paris planned to select a wardrobe suitable for the trip to America.
It was after this evening that the Count invited the other ladies, much to the displeasure of his associates. One of them did not hesitate to express himself, one night before they sailed.
“You know as well as I do, George, that we decided years ago that the less we had to do with women — that is, permanently— the better it would be for our plans. We broke that rule when we took Ebony Kate, and look what happened! Of course she helped hold the boys together, but I always will believe that in some way she was to blame for that explosion. Of course she was killed, and nearly everybody else except a few of us who were lucky enough to be in the vault when it happened. She and a thousand of our best men were just blown to pieces and our plans smashed with them. If we had done as we always did, we would have killed the man right away instead of waiting for the vaudeville in the temple. In consequence, he got the jump on us, and we were just lucky to escape with our lives. You let this bunch of skirts alone. Have all the women you want, but don’t think of marrying one. Wait till we get through. We want nothing now but revenge and a place in the sun for our race. After we put over our programme there will be time enough for the luxuries of life.” Count Sebastian heard his friend through without interruption and without irritation.
“What you say is true, Marcus, but unfortunately, in this instance, I am really in love. I hate the white race as much as you do and have given the best years of my life to their ultimate humiliation. Perhaps we should have been better off without Kate, but you know as well as I do, that every black man we brought to New York was converted to our cause after spending one evening in the Temple. I don’t know yet what caused the explosion. Of course we blame it on that man Taine, but there is such a thing as spontaneous combustion. I am sure that Kate was killed— that is all passed and gone — let's forget it. We still have the brains of the movement. I do not believe there is a bit of harm in the entire body or mind of this lady I am in love with. She is in sympathy with us — in fact, she has made me promise not to press marriage until this part of the programme is finished. As soon as the gold is delivered, we will all board the laboratory ship in New York Harbor and disappear for a while. She will go with me as my wife. She has dark blood in her and has been well educated. In our future work she will be a help to us.”
“How do you know so much about her, George?” “She told me!”
"Are you going to believe all she said to you?”
For the first time the Count showed irritation. “See here, Marcus, don’t call my future wife a liar.” The man called Marcus stopped talking and went out of the room, inwardly cursing the entire female race. None the less, when the ship sailed, there was a very beautiful lady with him, whom he introduced to everybody as his wife.
It did not increase the comfort of the President of the United States when he heard that over thirty ladies were going to be on the gold ship. He at once sent for the Secretary of State.
“I suppose you have heard the latest about the gold ship?”
"I certainly have,” replied that official. “If Taine is not careful to select the right time, he will not only sink the ship and the English gold but he will also drown a few dozen of the most important ladies of Europe, including the daughter of the President of France. When they find out that the ship was sunk by our orders, we shall have some explanations to make.”
“But we must find Taine!”
“You teli me how to do it. I can’t find him.”
“Then wire France advising that the ladies stay at home.”
“Just as soon as they receive such a wire, thirty more will be determined to make the trip.”
“Then let’s wait till Taine shows his hand. Perhaps he will select a pleasant day and all the ladies will be saved. The American battleships are to be on either side of the gold ship and our officers can have the pleasure of rescuing these fair ladies. Perhaps a few international weddings will result,”
“More likely there will be a few wars,” sighed the President.
The next day he received a radiogram stating that the ships had left the port of Bordeaux.
THE next week was a living nightmare to the President and those in his confidence; but to those aboard the gold ship it was a continuous round of pleasure. The weather was perfect, the cuisine wonderful and the entertainments superb. The water was so still that on several evenings a boatload of officers came over from the American battleships and gave the European ladies a change of dancing partners.
Among the ladies none was more lovely, more wonderfully dressed or had a greater profusion of exquisite jewelry, than that of Angeline Pleasance, the exquisite
Asiatic, whose engagement to Count Sebastian was now known to all. She had permanently discarded her oriental robes and appeared in the daring of the latest Parisian mode, causing her to be the despair of all the ladies and the Count the envied of all the men. To match her petite form, she had a pleasing voice and a brilliant mind. At the card table, piano or tango she was equally proficient.
To the ladies she never failed to mention her wonderful maid, Marietta. To hear her talk one would think that without this maid she would be helpless and hopeless. The maid herself was rarely in evidence, and was such a dark ugly creature that the jealous ladies declared openly that the Pleasance woman had selected such a maid simply to accentuate her own beauty by contrast.
Thus the days passed, slowly to the anxious Americans, all too fast for the pleasure seekers on the gold ship. They passed without incident or accident, the ships steaming westward as though on parade, the gold ship in the middle, a United States battleship on either side, directly in front two English men-of-war and directly behind two French cruisers. The other ships brought up the rear.
One moonlight night Count Sebastian had left the dance hall and, accompanied by his associate, the one he called Marcus, walked over to the side of the ship. Just across the lazy waves he could easily make out the details of the U. S. Ship Pennsylvania.
“That is a big ship, Marcus,” he said.
“It certainly is, George.”
“One or two ships like that mean a lot — but they are just symbols, Marcus. They stand for the United States. We hate her, and we have tried our best to harm her, but so far it has been like shooting an air gun against that battleship. I feel helpless when I think about it at times. Look at those guns. One shot from that twelve inch gun pointing this way would send our ship to the bottom.”
“You are pessimistic tonight, George. All this thinking is the result of your being in love.”
“Not at all. But look at those guns. I fancy I see smoke curling from their open months. I have been nervous since the night the Center Internationale went to bits. Guess I had better take a dose of bromides tonight.”
“Don’t take any more dope, George,” pleaded Marcus. “We want your active mind, keen and brilliant and not dulled by drugs.”
The night before the ships arrived in New York, Count Sebastian took his fiancee to a quiet nook on the upper deck.
“Just as soon as we arrive in New York I want you and your maid to go to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and wait there for me. It may take me a day or more to attend to my business and then we are going to be married and begin our honeymoon on our steam yacht. It is primarily a floating laboratory but the rooms are elegantly furnished. My three friends are going with us — we have thought it best to keep it quiet for a while —I have not told you all, hut you ought to know the main facts. This gold we are taking to the United States is synthetic gold. No one can tell it from real gold. Next week we will send to over a thousand scientists all over the world the exact method of its manufacture from mercury and lead. Just as soon as that information is published, gold will become worthless, and the United States will be a bankrupt nation. Every nation will declare platinum the standard of exchange. The United States will be exposed to the ridicule of the world. They will never recover from their humiliation.”
Angeline Pleasance did not answer, but her lips gave
full proof of her loving devotion to her hero. Finally she whispered:
“You tell me just what you want me to do and I will do it. I want to do everything I can to help you. You may hate the white race more than I do, but I doubt it. Some day I want to tell you the story of my maid. She also has suffered worse than death at their hands. You must be careful. I am afraid of your going to New York. They may kill you as they did those poor people in the building you told me about.”
“Do not worry, my dear,” said the Count, soothingly. “They may suspect something but they would not dare come out openly and harm any of us. They could not do that without insulting the world. We cannot hurt them worse than through their pocketbook. After we crush them financially, we will have a final crushing blow. Come closer and let me whisper to you * * * * ****** What do you think about that?”
The woman sighed deeply.
“Oh! George! Could you do that? If you do, it will be wonderful! I hope I live to see that day; and to think that I am going to share such a wonderful revenge with you.”
They agreed between their kisses that life was wonderfully fine.
TO the great delight of the President of the United States and his Cabinet, the gold ship finally arrived in New York, A regiment of Marines acted as guard and after some delay the boxes of gold were deposited in the Custom House. There the representatives of the Allied nations, the President and his Cabinet, the four bankers headed by Count Sebastian, and several chemists and metallurgists from the Philadelphia Mint gathered to determine the value of the shipment. The boxes were placed in separate piles, each pile representing the debt of a nation. A detailed inventory was given to the President, showing in detail the number of boxes, the value of gold in each box, both by weight and in dollars. Each man in the room had a copy of this inventory.
The Secretary of State called the persons in the room to order and spoke from his position on the top of a chair:
“Gentlemen, I am speaking for the President of the United States. Realizing that you are all anxious to be through with the business of this trip, so you and your ladies will have ample leisure to enjoy the hospitality of the City of New York, I am authorized to say that we will accept without question, your statement as to the amount of gold in this shipment. We feel, however, that we should make at least a perfunctory examination of this shipment, and have determined to open, in your presence, one box from each country. This will be given a casual examination by our experts, after which we will sign a receipt in full for the debt, giving a copy on parchment to each representative present. We shall first ask that a box of gold from Great Britain be opened.”
At this point the British Ambassador limped forward.
“Before you open a box of our gold, I should like to make a statement. We thought it best to keep the gold we borrowed in our English banks. We have, therefore, replaced the original bar gold with minted gold of the Realm. As this does not pack as heavily as the bar gold, we had ten more boxes made and filled. So, if you count our boxes, you will find ten more than the inventory calls for. You can open any box you wish, as I am sure you will find them all the same.” The four bankers looked at each other. Count Sebastian shrugged his shoulders.
“Gold is gold,” he murmured to the one beside him.
The top was unscrewed from one of the boxes in the English pile. As the Ambassador had stated, it was filled with royal sovereigns.
“We shall now have the other boxes opened,” said the Secretary of State.
“As each box is opened, our experts will make a simple visual examination and then we will go to lunch.”
Amid a deep silence, a box was opened from the French pile. The experts from the Mint looked into it, and began to whistle. Thereupon, without waiting for orders, they opened a box of the Italian payment, one of the German pile, another from Turkey. Then they went and began to whisper to the Secretary of State and the President. Meanwhile, the opened boxes were being examined by the various representatives of the foreign countries and the air became blue with curses in a dozen different languages. Other boxes were opened with the same result. Finally the President asked for silence.
“Gentlemen,” he began. “I do not want you to think that I am reflecting at all on your own integrity or on the honesty of the countries you represent, but in some way you have been imposed upon. Our metallurgists inform me that these boxes are not filled with gold but with some alloy which they believe to be a combination of mercury and lead. Naturally, we cannot, under the circumstances, sign any receipt for the debt. We trust, however, that you will remain as our guests for a private discussion of the matter, which, we are certain will go far toward relieving the strain of the situation. I assure you that nothing of this will appear in our American papers and the question of publicity in Europe will depend upon yourselves.”
At that time someone thought of looking for the four bankers, but they had disappeared. It was probably fortunate for them that they could not be found. They had taken advantage of the confusion following the opening of the French box and slipped out of the building and into one of the taxicabs waiting in front of the building. Refusing to listen to the pleading of his three associates, Count Sebastian ordered the chauffeur to drive to the Cosmopolitan Hotel. There he rushed into the lobby and asked for the Countess Pleasance.
“I am sorry, sir,” the clerk replied, “but shortly after they went to their room, the lady and her maid came down, paid their bill and left, without leaving a forwarding address.”
Staggering, the Count left the Hotel and walked out to the taxi, where the other three men were waiting for him. They were driven down to a pier in lower New York, jumped into a motor boat and in ten minutes were in a steam yacht headed for the open sea. None of them talked till they were well into Long Island Sound. Then the Count took a drink and asked:
“Tell me what happened, Marcus? What in hell happened? Surely we had gold in those boxes when we left Bordeaux.”
The man called Marcus took a long drink of whisky. “Sure we had gold in those boxes in Bordeaux, but it was synthetic gold. We knew' how to make it and just because we did not know how to unmake it, we thought no one else would know. Somebody was smarter than we were and that is all there is to it. The best thing we can do is to keep mighty quiet for a while. Europe will be a hotter place for us than the United States ever was — after this affair.”
“But what about my fiancee?” cried Count Sebastian. “We must go back and find her!”
“Better leave her alone,” growled one of the men, “and after this you cut out the love stuff when we are busy. No telling who she was, but I bet she was mixed up in it in some way.”
Meantime the steam yacht kept steadily on its way out through Long Island Sound.
JUST as soon as he could, the President of the United States took the English Ambassador to one side.
“I want you,” he said, “to send a full report of this to your Government; and be sure to put in all the details. Tell them not to worry about the gold they have being of no value, because every piece of the gold you sent us in good faith is going right back to London, just as fast as one of our warships can carry it. Under the circumstances, we would not think of keeping it. You had better have that other gold taken out and dumped into the ocean. I do not know yet just what happened to that gold on the voyage but I believe that whatever it was is known to some of our scientists and you can tell your people that the nations will keep the gold standard, and Great Britain and the United States will do what they can to make this world a better and safer place to live in.”
The next two weeks were rather busy ones, spent in officially entertaining the ladies and gentlemen who had come to New York on the gold ship. All things considered, they had a rather pleasant time, and finally they left under the impression that the United States was not such a heartless country after all. Just what kind of a report they made to their respective governments was never learned. Some of the countries made an honest effort to pay their debt — while others did not, nations being very much like individuals in this respect.
AFTER the visitors had left and everything had quieted down to normal, the President started to review the entire problem carefully. He wanted to know what had happened — and he wanted to talk to Taine. The Secretary of State assured him, over the phone, that he had seen nothing of that gentleman. The Secretary of the Treasury informed him that Taine had drawn on him for a total of over one million, but otherwise had not been heard from. The Chief of the Secret Service informed him that Mrs. Taine had received several messages in code to the effect that her husband was all right and would be home soon. Just as he was giving up hope of ever seeing the mysterious gentleman from San Francisco, that very person walked into his private office.
“I thought perhaps you would like to see me before I went home,” said Taine. “I knew that you were busy, so I waited till things quieted down a bit. In fact, a lady friend of mine and I have been down to Palm Beach taking a vacation. She is out in the anteroom making eyes at your secretary. Would you like to meet her?”
“I certainly should, but don’t dare to get out of my sight. I will send for some of the Cabinet and we want you to tell us what happened. We are literally dying from curiosity.”
A half hour later one woman and seven men were in the President’s office. A stenographer was at a side table ready to take down Tame’s verbal report. That gentleman coughed and rather shyly began:
“After I left you here some months ago, I went and had a long talk with that old chemist from the Department of Agriculture, and he told me that he did not know how gold was made, but that if it was made at all it was made so and so. Then I went to Cornell and found out what they knew about it and they called in some cranks from the Westinghouse and General
Electric and we went into executive session. They said it could not be done and I told them that if a black man had brains enough to make gold, they ought to have brains enough not only to make it but to unmake it as well. That made them mad and they raved around a while and then settled down to work. Finally they made something that looked like gold and was gold, only it could be changed back to mercury and lead. It was amusing to watch them play with it after they once found out how to do it. We finally were able to take a piece of the synthetic gold and shoot a special X-ray at it over half a mile and, pop, it would turn back to lead. Those youngsters were bright boys, and I think that something ought to be done for them. They did all the work: all I did was just to get them good and mad. Then we found that we could shoot this long distance X-ray just like a stream of water out of a hose, and were able to send it through a sheet of steel a foot thick. After that the rest was easy. We arranged with Cramp’s Ship Yard and the Navy Department to put about twenty of these special X-ray generators in the two battleships that were to act as escort to the gold ship. Just for the novelty of it and to keep the machines concealed, we hid the X-ray tubes in some of the larger guns, and all we had to do was to keep them trained on the gold ship. The metal guns, by the way, gave the X-rays a beam direction, which concentrated them on any desired spot. The naval officers were very clever in their cooperation and intensely interested and during the entire voyage the gold ship was fired upon constantly by these rays. Of course we could not be sure that it would work because we had no way of felling that the gold we made was the same kind as the gold they made. We took a chance. I was greatly pleased when we heard the news as to just how well it did work. I took the liberty of giving fifty of the men most concerned ten thousand dollars each. I have their names and I really think that some of them deserve more. You can look into the matter and do as you think best.
“Then I went over to France. I was anxious to get on that ship and find out whether the bankers were the same men that I knew in New York, bat I did not want to take any chances, so I engaged the best female impersonator in the world; really he is clever, and this time he went by the name of Angeline Pleasance, a half breed from Asia. She had a lot of jewelry and I bought her some more and a new wardrobe and I dressed up as her maid. It was the first time I had done anything like that, but I had a good teacher and we sure made a hit. This lady here is Angeline, and I know you will agree with me that she is some bird. Take off your hat and wig, and show the gentlemen what you look like as a real man. Our plans worked out nicely and Count Sebastian fell for her hard and wanted to marry her. That is how we got on the ship. The Count had the other ladies along so he could take his Angeline. I saw enough of the bunch of crooks to satisfy myself that they were the same white negroes I met the night the Center Internationale blew up. I don’t know for sure how they escaped. Angeline found out a few things — not as much as we wanted to. Of course we could have gone off with them on their yacht, but we felt that it was too dangerous. I have promised to pay Bill a half million for his services and he has drawn the money but I made him promise not to spend any of it till you gentlemen approved of it. So, while we were waiting for things to quiet down, Bill and I went down to Palm Beach and he taught me a lot about his business and I did a lot of practicing down there. I am not so bad myself, only it is hard to shave three times a day. I have a little memorandum of just what I spent and what I spent it for. You can have a bookkeeper go over it and audit it and the checks I have drawn on the Treasury. I think that is about all, so if you tell Bill the half million is his, we will go. I am anxious to get back home.”
“Your friend Bill can have his half million and more, too, if he wants it,” said the President. “We certainly do thank you, Mr. Taine. How much does the Government owe you?”
“Oh! My salary of two hundred a month from San Francisco has been going on ever since I left home. They pay my wife the money when I am out of town, so you see you really do not owe me anything.”
“But we want to give you something,” insisted the President.
“You decide what it was worth to you and send it to the wife,” said Taine shyly. “You see, she tithes all my income outside of my flat salary and that means 10 per cent for the church and 90 per cent for herself. So if you want to give me anything, just send it to her. That will please her. There is another thing I ought to say and if you will, sir, I want to whisper it to you. It is something that Bill found out and we think you ought to know. *****"
“You surely do not mean it? They would not dare to do it!” replied the President.
“Well, maybe not, but there is no telling what they will do so long as they are alive. At least you people in Washington can be on the lookout, and now I guess I will say good-bye and take the next train west.”