The street had changed its appearance in the two or three hours since I had made my way from the Exchange through the pallid, panic-stricken mob. There were still thousands of people between the corner of Montgomery Street and Leidesdorff, and the little alley itself was packed full of shouting, struggling traders. The thousands were broken into hundreds of groups, and men were noisily buying and selling, or discussing the chances of the market when the “big Board” should open once more. But there was an air of confidence, almost of buoyancy, in place of the gloom and terror that had lowered over the street at noon. Plainly the panic was over, and men were inspirited by a belief that “stocks were going up.”

I made a few dispositions accordingly. Taking Doddridge Knapp's hint, I engaged another broker as a relief to Eppner, a short fat man, with the baldest head I ever saw, a black beard and a hook-nose, whose remarkable activity and scattering charges had attracted my attention in the morning session.

Wallbridge was his name, I found, and he proved to be as intelligent as I could wish—a merry little man, with a joke for all things, and a flow of words that was almost overwhelming.

“Omega? Yes,” chuckled the stout little broker, after he had assured himself of my financial standing. “But you ought to have bought this morning, if that's what you want. It was hell popping and the roof giving 'way all at once.” The little man had an abundant stock of profanity which he used unconsciously and with such original variations that one almost forgot the blasphemy of it while listening to him. “You ought to have been there,” he continued, “and watched the boys shell 'em out!”

“Yes, I heard you had lively times.”

“Boiling,” he said, with coruscating additions in the way of speech and gesture. “If it hadn't been for Decker and some fellow we haven't had a chance to make out yet the bottom of the market would have been resting on the roof of the lower regions.” The little man's remark was slightly more direct and forcible, but this will do for a revised version.

“Decker!” I exclaimed, pricking up my ears. “I thought he had quit the market.”

As I had never heard of Mr. Decker before that moment this was not exactly the truth, but I thought it would serve me better.

“Decker out of it!” gasped Wallbridge, his bald head positively glistening at the absurdity of the idea. “He'll be out of it when he's carried out.”

“I meant out of Omega. Is he getting up a deal?”

The little broker looked vexed, as though it crossed his mind that he had said too much.

“Oh, no. Guess not. Don't think he is,” he said rapidly. “Just wanted to save the market, I guess. If Omega had gone five points lower, there would have been the sickest times in the Street that we've seen since the Bank of California closed and the shop across the way,”—pointing his thumb at the Exchange,—“had to be shut up. But maybe it wasn't Decker, you know. That's just what was rumored on the Street, you know.”

I suspected that my little broker knew more than he was willing to tell, but I forbore to press him further; and giving him the order to buy all the Omega stock he could pick up under fifty, I made my way to Eppner.

The blue-black eyes of that impassive agent snapped with a glow of interest when I gave him my order to sell the other purchases of the morning and buy Omega, but faded into a dull stare when I lingered for conversation.

I was not to be abashed.

“I wonder who was picking up Omega this morning?” I said.

“Oh, some of the shorts getting ready to fill contracts,” he replied in his dry, uninterested tones.

“I heard that Decker was in the market for the stock,” I said.

The blue-black eyes gave a flash of genuine surprise.

“Decker!” he exclaimed. Then his eyes fell, and he paused a moment before replying in his high inflexible voice. “He might be.”

“Is he after Omega, or is he just bracing up the market?”

“Excuse me,” said Eppner with the cold reflection of an apologetic tone, “but we never advise customers. Are you walking over to the Exchange?”

In the Exchange all was excitement, and the first call brought a roar of struggling brokers. I could make nothing of the clamor, but my nearest neighbor shouted in my ear:

“A strong market!”

“It looks that way,” I shouted back. It certainly was strong in noise.

I made out at last that prices were being held to the figures of the morning's session, and in some cases were forced above them.

The excitement grew as the call approached Omega. There was an electric tension in the air that told of the anxious hopes and fears that centered in the coming struggle. The stock was called at last, and I looked for a roar that would shake the building and a scene of riot on the floor that would surpass anything I had witnessed yet.

It failed to come. There was almost a pause in the proceedings.

I caught a glimpse of Doddridge Knapp across the room, looking on with a grim smile on the wolf jaws and an apparently impassive interest in the scene. I marveled at his coolness when his fortune, perhaps, turned on the events of the next five minutes. He gave no sign, nor once looked in my direction.

The clamor on the floor began and swelled in volume, and a breath of visible relief passed over the anxious assembly.

Wallbridge and Eppner made a dive at once for a yelling broker, and a cold chill ran down my back. I saw then that I had set my brokers bidding against each other for the same stock.

“Great Mammon!” I thought. “If Doddridge Knapp ever finds it out, what a circus there will be!”

“She's going up!” said my neighbor with a shout of joy. He owned none of the stock, but like the rest of the populace he was a bull on principle.

I nodded with a dubious attempt to imitate his signs of satisfaction.

Forty-five—forty-seven—fifty-five—it was going up by leaps. I blessed the forethought that had suggested to me to put a limit on Wallbridge and stop the competition between my agents at fifty. The contest grew warmer. I could follow with difficulty the course of the proceedings, but I knew that Omega was bounding upward.

The call closed amid animation; but the excitement was nothing compared to the scene that had followed the fall in the morning. Omega stood at eighty asked, and seventy-eight bid, and the ship of the stock gamblers was again sailing on an even keel. Some hundreds had been washed overboard, but there were thousands left, and nobody foresaw the day when the market would take the fashion of a storm-swept hulk, with only a chance survivor clinging here and there to the wreckage and exchanging tales of the magnificence that once existed.

The session was over at last, and Wallbridge and Eppner handed me their memoranda of purchases.

“You couldn't pick Omega off the bushes this afternoon, Mr. Wilton,” said Wallbridge, wiping his bald head vigorously. “There's fools at all times, and some of 'em were here and ready to drop what they had; but not many. I gathered in six hundred for you, but I had to fight for it.”

I thanked the merry broker, and gave him a check for his balance.

Eppner had done some better with a wider margin, but all told I had added but three thousand one hundred shares to my list. I wondered how much of this had been sold to me by my employer. Plainly, if Doddridge Knapp was needing Omega stock he would have to pay for it.

There was no one to be seen as I reached Room 15. The connecting door was closed and locked, and no sound came from behind it. I turned to arrange the books, to keep from a bad habit of thinking over the inexplicable. But there was nothing exciting enough, in the statutes or reports of court decisions or text-books, to cover up the questions against which I had been beating in vain ever since I had entered this accursed city.

An hour passed, and no Doddridge Knapp. It was long past office hours. The sun had disappeared in the bank of fog that was rolling up from the ocean and coming in wisps and streamers over the hills, and the light was fast failing.

Just as I was considering whether my duty to my employer constrained me to wait longer, I caught sight of an envelope that had been slipped under the door. I wondered, as I hastily opened it and brought its inclosure to the failing light, how it could have got there. It was in cipher, but it yielded to the key with which Doddridge Knapp had provided me. I made it out to be this:

I was thrown into some perplexity by this order. For a little I suspected a trap, but on second thought this seemed unlikely. The office furnished as convenient a place for homicidal diversions as he could wish, if these were in his intention, and possibly a visit to Doddridge Knapp in his own house would give me a better clue to his habits and purposes, and a better chance of bringing home to him his awful crime, than a month together on the Street.

The clocks were pointing past eight when I mounted the steps that led to Doddridge Knapp's door. Doddridge Knapp's house fronted upper Pine Street much as Doddridge Knapp himself fronted lower Pine Street. There was a calmly aggressive look about it that was typical of the owner. It defied the elements with easy strength, as Doddridge Knapp defied the storms of the market. I had the fancy that even if the directory had not given me its position I might have picked it out from its neighbors by its individuality, its impression of reserve force.

I had something of trepidation, after all, as I rang the bell, for I was far from being sure that Doddridge Knapp was above carrying out his desperate purposes in his own house, and I wondered whether I should ever come out again, once I was behind those massive doors. I had taken the precaution to find a smaller revolver, “suitable for an evening call,” as I assured myself, but it did not look to be much of a protection in case the house held a dozen ruffians of the Terrill brand. However, I must risk it. I gave my name to the servant who opened the door.

“This way,” he said quietly.

I had hardly time as I passed to note the large hall, the handsome staircase, and the wide parlors that hung rich with drapery, but in darkness. I was led beyond and behind them, and in a moment was ushered into a small, plainly-furnished room; and at a desk covered with papers sat Doddridge Knapp, the picture of the Wolf in his den.

“Sit down, Wilton,” said he with grim affability, giving his hand. “You won't mind if an old man doesn't get up.”

I made some conventional reply.

“Sorry to disappoint you this afternoon, and take up your evening,” he said; “but I found some business that needed more immediate attention. There was a little matter that had to be looked after in person.” And the Wolf's fangs showed in a cruel smile, which assured me that the “little matter” had terminated unhappily for the other man.

I airily professed myself happy to be at his service at any time.

“Yes, yes,” he said; “but let's see your memoranda. Did you do well this afternoon?”

“No-o,” I returned apologetically. “Not so well as I wished.”

He took the papers and looked over them carefully.

“Thirty-one hundred,” he said reflectively. “Those sales were all right. Well, I was afraid you couldn't get above three thousand. I didn't get more than two thousand in the other Boards and on the Street.”

“That was the best I could do,” I said modestly. “They average at sixty-five. Omega got away from us this afternoon like a runaway horse.”

“Yes, yes,” said the King of the Street, studying his papers with drawn brows. “That's all right. I'll have to wait a bit before going further.” I bowed as became one who had no idea of the plans ahead.

“And now,” said Doddridge Knapp, turning on me a keen and lowering gaze, “I'd like to know what call you have to be spying on me?”

I opened my eyes wide in wonder.

“Spying? I don't understand.”

“No?” said he, with something between a growl and a snarl. “Well, maybe you don't understand that, either!” And he tossed me a bit of paper.

I felt sure that I did not. My ignorance grew into amazement as I read. The slip bore the words:

“I certainly don't understand,” I said. “What does it mean?”

“The man who wrote it ought to know,” growled Doddridge Knapp, with his eyes flashing and the yellow-gray mustache standing out like bristles. The fangs of the Wolf were in sight.

“Well, you'll have to look somewhere else for him,” I said firmly. “I never saw the note, and never bought a share of Crown Diamond.”

Doddridge Knapp bent forward, and looked for an instant as though he would leap upon me. His eye was the eye of a wild beast in anger. If I had written that note I should have gone through the window without stopping for explanations. As I had not written it I sat there coolly and looked him in the face with an easy conscience.

“Well, well,” he said at last, relaxing his gaze, “I almost believe you.”

“There's no use going any further, Mr. Knapp, unless you believe me altogether.”

“I see you understand what I was going to say,” he said quietly. “But if you didn't send that, who did?”

“Well, if I were to make a guess, I should say it was the man who wrote this.”

I tossed him in turn the note I had received in the afternoon, bidding me sell everything.

The King of the Street looked at it carefully, and his brows drew lower and lower as its import dawned on him. The look of angry perplexity deepened on his face.

“Where did you get this?”

I detailed the circumstances.

The anger that flashed in his eyes was more eloquent than the outbreak of curses I expected to hear.

“Um!” he said at last with a grim smile. “It's lucky, after all, that you had something besides cotton in that skull of yours, Wilton.”

“A fool might have been caught by it,” I said modestly.

“There looks to be trouble ahead,” he said, “There's a rascally gang in the market these days.” And the King of the Street sighed over the dishonesty that had corrupted the stock gamblers' trade. I smiled inwardly, but signified my agreement with my employer.

“Well, who wrote them?” he asked almost fiercely. “They seem to come from the same hand.”

“Maybe you'd better ask that fellow who had his eye at your keyhole when I left the office this noon.”

“Who was that?” The Wolf gave a startled look. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“He was a well-made, quick, lithe fellow, with an eye that reminded me of a snake. I gave chase to him, but couldn't overhaul him. He squirmed away in the crowd, I guess.”

The last part of my tale was unheard. At the description of the snake-eyed man, Doddridge Knapp sank back in his chair, the flash of anger died out of his eyes, and his mind was far away.

Was it terror, or anxiety, or wonder, that swept in shadow across his face? The mask that never gave up a thought or purpose before the changing fortunes of the market was not likely to fail its owner here. I could make nothing out of the page before me, except that the vision of Terrill had startled him.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he said at last, in a steady voice.

“I didn't suppose it was worth coming back for, after I got into the street. And, besides, you were busy.”

“Yes, yes, you were right: you are not to come—of course, of course.”

The King of the Street looked at me curiously, and then said smoothly:

“But this isn't business.” And he plunged into the papers once more. “There were over nine thousand shares sold this afternoon, and I got only five thousand of them.”

“I suppose Decker picked the others up,” I said.

The King of the Street did me the honor to look at me in amazement.

“Decker!” he roared. “How did you—” Then he paused and his voice dropped to its ordinary tone. “I reckon you're right. What gave you the idea?”

I frankly detailed my conversation with Wallbridge. As I went on, I fancied that the bushy brows drew down and a little anxiety showed beneath them.

I had hardly finished my account when there was a knock at the door, and the servant appeared.

“Mrs. Knapp's compliments, and she would like to see Mr. Wilton when you are done,” he said.

I could with difficulty repress an exclamation, and my heart climbed into my throat. I was ready to face the Wolf in his den, but here was a different matter. I recalled that Mrs. Knapp was a more intimate acquaintance of Henry Wilton's than Doddridge Knapp had been, and I saw Niagara ahead of my skiff.

“Yes, yes; quite likely,” said my employer, referring to my story of Wallbridge. “I heard something of the kind from my men. I'll know to-morrow for certain, I expect. I forgot to tell you that the ladies would want to see you. They have missed you lately.” And the Wolf motioned me to the door where the servant waited.

Here was a predicament. I was missed and wanted—and by the ladies. My heart dropped back from my throat, and I felt it throbbing in the lowest recesses of my boot-heels as I rose and followed my guide.