nelse ackerman’s home was far out in the suburbs of the city, upon a knoll surrounded by forest. it was a couple of miles from the nearest trolley line, which forced peter to take a hot walk in the sun. apparently the great banker, in selecting the site of his residence, had never once thought that anybody might want to get to it without an automobile. peter reflected as he walked that if he continued to move in these higher circles, he too would have to join the motor-driving class.
about the estate there ran a great bronze fence, ten feet high, with sharp, inhospitable spikes pointing outwards. peter had read about this fence a long time ago in the american city “times”; it was so and so many thousand yards long, and had so and so many spikes, and had cost so and so many tens of thousands of dollars. there were big bronze gates locked tight, and a sign that said: “beware the dogs!” inside the gates were three guards carrying rifles and walking up and down; they were a consequence of the recent dynamite conspiracy, but peter did not realize this, he took them for a regular institution, and a symbol of the importance of the man he was to visit.
he pressed a button by the side of the gate, and a lodgekeeper came out, and peter, according to orders, gave the name “arthur g. mcgillicuddy.” the lodge-keeper went inside and telephoned, and then came back and opened the gate, just enough to admit peter. “you’re to be searched,” said the lodge-keeper; and peter, who had been arrested many times, took no offense at this procedure, but found it one more evidence of the importance of nelse ackerman. the guards went thru his pockets, and felt him all over, and then one of them marched him up the long gravel avenue thru the forest, climbed a flight of marble steps to the palace on the knoll, and turned him over to a chinese butler who walked on padded slippers.
if peter had not known that this was a private home he would have thought it was an art gallery. there were great marble columns, and paintings bigger than peter, and tapestries with life-size horses; there were men in armor, and battle axes and japanese dancing devils, and many other strange sights. ordinarily peter would have been interested in learning how a great millionaire decorated his house, and would have drunk deep of the joy of being amid such luxury. but now all his thoughts were taken up with his dangerous business. nell had told him what to look for, and he looked. mounting the velvet-carpeted staircase, he noted a curtain behind which a man might hide, and a painting of a spanish cavalier on the wall just opposite. he would make use of these two sights.
they went down a hall, like a corridor in the hotel de soto, and at the end of it the butler tapped softly upon a door, and peter was ushered into a big apartment in semi-darkness. the butler retired without a sound, closing the door behind him and peter stood hesitating, looking about to get his bearings. from the other side of the room he heard three faint coughs, suggesting a sick man. there was a four-poster bed of some dark wood, with a canopy over it and draperies at the side, and a man in the bed, sitting propped up with pillows. there were more coughs, and then a faint whisper, “this way.” so peter crossed over and stood about ten feet from the bed, holding his hat in his hands; he was not able to see very much of the occupant of the bed, nor was he sure it would be respectful for him to try to see.
“so you’re—(cough) what’s your name?”
“gudge,” said peter.
“you are the man—(cough) that knows about the reds?”
“yes, sir.”
the occupant of the bed coughed every two or three minutes thru the conversation that followed, and each time peter noticed that he put his hand up to his mouth as if he were ashamed of the noise. gradually peter got used to the twilight, and could see that nelse ackerman was an old man with puffy, droopy cheeks and chin, and dark puffy crescents under his eyes. he was quite bald, and had on his head a skull cap of embroidered black silk, and a short, embroidered jacket over his night shirt. beside the bed stood a table covered with glasses and bottles and pill-boxes, and also a telephone. every few minutes this telephone would ring, and peter would wait patiently while mr. ackerman settled some complex problem of business. “i’ve told them my terms,” he would say with irritation, and then he would cough; and peter, who was sharply watching every detail of the conduct of the rich, noted that he was too polite even to cough into the telephone. “if they will pay a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars on account, i will wait, but not a cent less,” nelse ackerman would say. and peter, awe-stricken, realized that he had now reached the very top of mount olympus, he was at the highest point he could hope to reach until he went to heaven.
the old man fixed his dark eyes on his visitor. “who wrote me that letter?” whispered the husky voice.
peter had been expecting this. “what letter, sir?”
“a letter telling me to see you.”
“i don’t know anything about it, sir.”
“you mean—(cough) you didn’t write me an anonynious letter?”
“no, sir, i didn’t.”
“then some friend of yours must have written it.”
“i dunno that. it might have been some enemy of the police.”
“well, now, what’s this about the reds having an agent in my home?”
“did the letter say that?”
“it did.”
“well, sir, that’s putting it too strong. i ain’t sure, it’s just an idea i’ve had. it’ll need a lot of explaining.”
“you’re the man who discovered this plot, i understand?”
“yes, sir.”
“well, take a chair, there,” said the banker. there was a chair near the bedside, but it seemed to peter too close to be respectful, so he pulled it a little farther away, and sat down on the front six inches of it, still holding his hat in his hands and twisting it nervously. “put down that hat,” said the old man, irritably. so peter stuck the hat under his chair, and said: “i beg pardon, sir.”
