第94章

He gave a quick, short breath, and straightened himself, passing his hands over his face.

"What the deuce," he muttered, "does this mean?"For a long moment he remained sitting upright in bed, looking from wall to wall of the room.He felt a little calmer.He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"Look here," he said to the opposite wall, "I guess I'm not a schoolgirl, to have nerves at this late date.

High time to get to sleep, if I'm to mix things with Crookes to-morrow."But he could not sleep.While the city woke to its multitudinous life below his windows, while the grey light of morning drowned the yellow haze from the gas jet that came through the transom, while the "early call" alarms rang in neighbouring rooms, Curtis Jadwin lay awake, staring at the ceiling, now concentrating his thoughts upon the vast operation in which he found himself engaged, following out again all its complexities, its inconceivable ramifications, or now puzzling over the inexplicable numbness, the queer, dull weight that descended upon his brain so soon as he allowed its activity to relax.

By five o'clock he found it intolerable to remain longer in bed; he rose, bathed, dressed, ordered his breakfast, and, descending to the office of the hotel, read the earliest editions of the morning papers for half an hour.

Then, at last, as he sat in the corner of the office deep in an armchair, the tired shoulders began to droop, the wearied head to nod.The paper slipped from his fingers, his chin sank upon his collar.

To his ears the early clamour of the street, the cries of newsboys, the rattle of drays came in a dull murmur.

It seemed to him that very far off a great throng was forming.It was menacing, shouting.It stirred, it moved, it was advancing.It came galloping down the street, shouting with insensate fury; now it was at the corner, now it burst into the entrance of the hotel.

Its clamour was deafening, but intelligible.For a thousand, a million, forty million voices were shouting in cadence:

"Wheat-wheat-wheat, wheat-wheat-wheat."

Jadwin woke abruptly, half starting from his chair.

The morning sun was coming in through the windows; the clock above the hotel desk was striking seven, and a waiter stood at his elbow, saying:

"Your breakfast is served, Mr.Jadwin."

He had no appetite.He could eat nothing but a few mouthfuls of toast, and long before the appointed hour he sat in Gretry's office, waiting for the broker to appear, drumming on the arm of his chair, plucking at the buttons of his coat, and wondering why it was that every now and then all the objects in his range of vision seemed to move slowly back and stand upon the same plane.

By degrees he lapsed into a sort of lethargy, a wretched counterfeit of sleep, his eyes half closed, his breath irregular.But, such as it was, it was infinitely grateful.The little, over-driven cogs and wheels of the mind, at least, moved more slowly.

Perhaps by and by this might actually develop into genuine, blessed oblivion.

But there was a quick step outside the door.Gretry came in.

"Oh, J.! Here already, are you? Well, Crookes will begin to sell at the very tap of the bell.""He will, hey?" Jadwin was on his feet.Instantly the jaded nerves braced taut again; instantly the tiny machinery of the brain spun again at its fullest limit.

"He's going to try to sell us out, is he? All right.

We'll sell, too.We'll see who can sell the most--Crookes or Jadwin."

"Sell! You mean buy, of course."

"No, I don't.I've been thinking it over since you left last night.Wheat is worth exactly what it is selling for this blessed day.I've not inflated it up one single eighth yet; Crookes thinks I have.Good Lord, I can read him like a book! He thinks I've boosted the stuff above what it's worth, and that a little shove will send it down.He can send it down to ten cents if he likes, but it'll jump back like a rubber ball.I'll sell bushel for bushel with him as long as he wants to keep it up.""Heavens and earth, J.," exclaimed Gretry, with a long breath, "the risk is about as big as holding up the Bank of England.You are depreciating the value of about forty million dollars' worth of your property with every cent she breaks.""You do as I tell you--you'll see I'm right," answered Jadwin."Get your boys in here, and we'll give 'em the day's orders."The "Crookes affair"--as among themselves the group of men who centred about Jadwin spoke of it--was one of the sharpest fights known on the Board of Trade for many a long day.It developed with amazing unexpectedness and was watched with breathless interest from every produce exchange between the oceans.

It occupied every moment of each morning's session of the Board of Trade for four furious, never-to-be-forgotten days.Promptly at half-past nine o'clock on Tuesday morning Crookes began to sell May wheat short, and instantly, to the surprise of every Pit trader on the floor, the price broke with his very first attack.

In twenty minutes it was down half a cent.Then came the really big surprise of the day.Landry Court, the known representative of the firm which all along had fostered and encouraged the rise in the price, appeared in the Pit, and instead of buying, upset all precedent and all calculation by selling as freely as the Crookes men themselves.For three days the battle went on.

But to the outside world--even to the Pit itself--it seemed less a battle than a rout.The "Unknown Bull"was down, was beaten at last.He had inflated the price of the wheat, he had backed a false, an artificial, and unwarrantable boom, and now he was being broken.Ah Crookes knew when to strike.Here was the great general--the real leader who so long had held back.

By the end of the Friday session, Crookes and his clique had sold five million bushels, "going short,"promising to deliver wheat that they did not own, but expected to buy at low prices.The market that day closed at ninety-five.