âI ... I accept,â he stammered and faltered in his eagerness. âI ... I ... How shall I say?... I am yours to command.â
Five minutes later, as he arose to go, fully instructed in the part he was to play and with his story of Morganâs treasure revised to convincingness by the brass-tack business acumen of the stock-gambler, he blurted out, almost facetiously, yet even more pathetically:
âAnd the funniest thing about it, Mr. Regan, is that it is true. Your advised changes in my narrative make it sound more true, but true it is under it all. I need the money. You are most munificent, and I shall do my best.... I ... I pride myself that I am an artist. But the real and solemn truth is that the clue to Morganâs buried loot is genuine. I have had access to records inaccessible to the public, which is neither here nor there, for the men of my own familyâthey are family recordsâhave had similar access, and have wasted their lives before me in the futile search. Yet were they on the right clueâexcept that their wits made them miss the spot by twenty miles. It was there in the records. They missed it, because it was, I think, a deliberate trick, a conundrum, a puzzle, a disguisement, a maze, which I, and I alone, have penetrated and solved. The early navigators all played such tricks on the charts they drew. My Spanish race so hid the Hawaiian Islands by five degrees of longitude.â
All of which was in turn Greek to Thomas Regan, who smiled his acceptance of listening and with the same smile conveyed his busy business-manâs tolerant unbelief.
Scarcely was Senor Torres gone, when Francis Morgan was shown in.
âJust thought Iâd drop around for a bit of counsel,â he said, greetings over. âAnd to whom but you should I apply, who so closely played the game with my father? You and he were partners, I understand, on some of the biggest deals. He always told me to trust your judgment. And, well, here I am, and I want to go fishing. Whatâs up with Tampico Petroleum?â
âWhat is up?â Regan countered, with fine simulation of ignorance of the very thing of moment he was responsible for precipitating. âTampico Petroleum?â
Francis nodded, dropped into a chair, and lighted a cigarette, while Regan consulted the ticker.
âTampico Petroleum is upâtwo pointsâyou should worry,â he opined.
âThatâs what I say,â Francis concurred. âI should worry. But just the same, do you think some bunch, onto the inside value of itâand itâs bigâI speak under the rose, you know, I mean in absolute confidence?â Regan nodded. âIt is big. It is right. It is the real thing. It is legitimate. Now this activityâwould you think that somebody, or some bunch, is trying to get control?â
His fatherâs associate, with the reverend gray of hair thatching his roof of crooked brain, shook the thatch.
âWhy,â he amplified, âit may be just a flurry, or it may be a hunch on the stock public that itâs really good. What do you say?â
âOf course itâs good,â was Francisâ warm response. âIâve got reports, Regan, so good theyâd make your hair stand up. As I tell all my friends, this is the real legitimate. Itâs a damned shame I had to let the public in on it. It was so big, I just had to. Even all the money my father left me, couldnât swing itâI mean, free money, not the stuff tied upâmoney to work with.â
âAre you short?â the older man queried.
âOh, Iâve got a tidy bit to operate with,â was the airy reply of youth.
âYou mean...?â
âSure. Just that. If she drops, Iâll buy. Itâs finding money.â
âJust about how far would you buy?â was the next searching interrogation, masked by an expression of mingled good humor and approbation.
âAll Iâve got,â came Francis Morganâs prompt answer. âI tell you, Regan, itâs immense.â
âI havenât looked into it to amount to anything, Francis; but I will say from the little I know that it listens good.â
âListens! I tell you, Regan, itâs the Simon-pure, straight legitimate, and itâs a shame to have it listed at all. I donât have to wreck anybody or anything to pull it across. The world will be better for my shooting into it I am afraid to say how many hundreds of millions of barrels of real oilââsay, Iâve got one well alone, in the Huasteca field, thatâs gushed 27,000 barrels a day for seven months. And itâs still doing it. Thatâs the drop in the bucket weâve got piped to market now. And itâs twenty-two gravity, and carries less than two-tenths of one per cent. of sediment. And thereâs one gusherâsixty miles of pipe to build to it, and pinched down to the limit of safety, thatâs pouring out all over the landscape just about seventy thousand barrels a day.âOf course, all in confidence, you know. Weâre doing nicely, and I donât want Tampico Petroleum to skyrocket.â
âDonât you worry about that, my lad. Youâve got to get your oil piped, and the Mexican revolution straightened out before ever Tampico Petroleum soars. You go fishing and forget it.â Regan paused, with finely simulated sudden recollection, and picked up Alvarez Torresâ card with the pencilled note. âLook, whoâs just been to see me.â Apparently struck with an idea, Regan retained the card a moment. âWhy go fishing for mere trout? After all, itâs only recreation. Hereâs a thing to go fishing after that thereâs real recreation in, full-size manâs recreation, and not the Persian-palace recreation of an Adirondack camp, with ice and servants and electric push-buttons. Your father always was more than a mite proud of that old family pirate. He claimed to look like him, and you certainly look like your dad.â
âSir Henry,â Francis smiled, reaching for the card. âSo am I a mite proud of the old scoundrel.â
He looked up questioningly from the reading of the card.
âHeâs a plausible cuss,â Regan explained. âClaims to have been born right down there on the Mosquito Coast, and to have got the tip from private papers in his family. Not that I believe a word of it. I havenât time or interest to get started believing in stuff outside my own field.â
âJust the same, Sir Henry died practically a poor man,â Francis asserted, the lines of the Morgan stubbornness knitting themselves for a flash on his brows. âAnd they never did find any of his buried treasure.â
âGood fishing,â Regan girded good-humoredly.
âIâd like to meet this Alvarez Torres just the same,â the young man responded.
âFoolâs gold,â Regan continued. âThough I must admit that the cuss is most exasperatingly plausible. Why, if I were youngerâbut oh, the devil, my workâs cut out for me here.â
âDo you know where I can find him?â Francis was asking the next moment, all unwittingly putting his neck into the net of tentacles that Destiny, in the visible incarnation of Thomas Regan, was casting out to snare him.
The next morning the meeting took place in Reganâs office. Senor Alvarez Torres startled and controlled himself at first sight of Francisâ face. This was not missed by Regan, who grinningly demanded:
âLooks like the old pirate himself, eh?â
âYes, the resemblance is most striking,â Torres lied, or half-lied, for he did recognize the resemblance to the portraits he had seen of Sir Henry Morgan; although at the same time under his eyelids he saw the vision of another and living man who, no less than Francis and Sir Henry, looked as much like both of them as either looked like the other.
Francis was youth that was not to be denied. Modern maps and ancient charts were pored over, as well as old documents, handwritten in faded ink on time-yellowed paper, and at the end of half an hour he announced that the next fish he caught would be on either the Bull or the Calfâthe two islets off the Lagoon of Chiriqui, on one or the other of which Torres averred the treasure lay.
âIâll catch to-nightâs train for New Orleans,â Francis announced. âThat will just make connection with one of the United Fruit Companyâs boats for Colonâoh, I had it all looked up before I slept last night.â
âBut donât charter a schooner at Colon,â Torres advised. âTake the overland trip by horseback to Belen. Thereâs the place to charter, with unsophisticated native sailors and everything else unsophisticated.â
âListens good!â Francis agreed. âI always wanted to see that country down there. Youâll be ready to catch to-nightâs train, Senor Torres?... Of course, you understand, under the circumstances, Iâll be the treasurer and foot the expenses.â
But at a privy glance from Regan, Alvarez Torres lied with swift efficientness.
âI must join you later, I regret, Mr. Morgan. Some little business that pressesâhow shall I say?âan insignificant little lawsuit that must be settled first. Not that the sum at issue is important. But it is a family matter, and therefore gravely important. We Torres have our pride, which is a silly thing, I acknowledge, in this country, but which with us is very serious.â
âHe can join afterward, and straighten you out if youâve missed the scent,â Regan assured Francis. âAnd, before it slips your mind, it might be just as well to arrange with Senor Torres some division of the loot ... if you ever find it.â
âWhat would you say?â Francis asked.
âEqual division, fifty-fifty,â Regan answered, magnificently arranging the apportionment between the two men of something he was certain did not exist.
âAnd you will follow after as soon as you can?â Francis asked the Latin American. âRegan, take hold of his little law affair yourself and expedite it, wonât you?â
âSure, boy,â was the answer. âAnd, if itâs needed, shall I advance cash to Senor Alvarez?â
âFine!â Francis shook their hands in both of his. âIt will save me bother. And Iâve got to rush to pack and break engagements and catch that train. So long, Regan. Good-bye, Senor Torres, until we meet somewhere around Bocas del Toro, or in a little hole in the ground on the Bull or the Calfâyou say you think itâs the Calf? Well, until thenâadios!â
And Senor Alvarez Torres remained with Regan some time longer, receiving explicit instructions for the part he was to play, beginning with retardation and delay of Francisâ expedition, and culminating in similar retardation and delay always to be continued.
âIn short,â Regan concluded, âI donât almost care if he never comes backâif you can keep him down there for the good of his health that long and longer.â
CHAPTER II
Money, like youth, will not be denied, and Francis Morgan, who was the man-legal and nature-certain representative of both youth and money, found himself one afternoon, three weeks after he had said good-bye to Regan, becalmed close under the land on board his schooner, the Angelique. The water was glassy, the smooth roll scarcely perceptible, and, in sheer ennui and overplus of energy that likewise declined to be denied, he asked the captain, a breed, half Jamaica negro and half Indian, to order a small skiff over the side.
âLooks like I might shoot a parrot or a monkey or something,â he explained, searching the jungle-clad shore, half a mile away, through a twelve-power Zeiss glass.