The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York
By Algernon Blackwood
When summoned to the study one morning, a private secretary with a mysterious past is given a strange and dangerous assignment involving old papers, blackmail, and a former partner with an ominous reputation.
I
It was never quite clear to me how Jim Shorthouse managed to get his private secretaryship; but, once he got it, he kept it, and for some years he led a steady life and put money in the savings bank.
One morning his employer sent for him into the study, and it was evident to the secretary’s trained senses that there was something unusual in the air.
“Mr. Shorthouse,” he began, somewhat nervously, “I have never yet had the opportunity of observing whether or not you are possessed of personal courage.”
Shorthouse gasped, but he said nothing. He was growing accustomed to the eccentricities of his chief. Shorthouse was a Kentish man; Sidebotham was “raised” in Chicago; New York was the present place of residence.
“But,” the other continued, with a puff at his very black cigar, “I must consider myself a poor judge of human nature in future, if it is not one of your strongest qualities.”
The private secretary made a foolish little bow in modest appreciation of so uncertain a compliment. Mr. Jonas B. Sidebotham watched him narrowly, as the novelists say, before he continued his remarks.
“I have no doubt that you are a plucky fellow and–” He hesitated, and puffed at his cigar as if his life depended upon it keeping alight.
“I don’t think I’m afraid of anything in particular, sir–except women,” interposed the young man, feeling that it was time for him to make an observation of some sort, but still quite in the dark as to his chief’s purpose.
“Humph!” he grunted. “Well, there are no women in this case so far as I know. But there may be other things that–that hurt more.”
“Wants a special service of some kind, evidently,” was the secretary’s reflection. “Personal violence?” he asked aloud.
“Possibly (puff), in fact (puff, puff) probably.”
Shorthouse smelt an increase of salary in the air. It had a stimulating effect.
“I’ve had some experience of that article, sir,” he said shortly; “but I’m ready to undertake anything in reason.”
“I can’t say how much reason or unreason there may prove to be in this particular case. It all depends.”
Mr. Sidebotham got up and locked the door of his study and drew down the blinds of both windows. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket and opened a black tin box. He ferreted about among blue and white papers for a few seconds, enveloping himself as he did so in a cloud of blue tobacco smoke.
“I feel like a detective already,” Shorthouse laughed.
“Speak low, please,” returned the other, glancing round the room. “We must observe the utmost secrecy. Perhaps you would be kind enough to close the registers,” he went on in a still lower voice. “Open registers have betrayed conversations before now.”
Shorthouse began to enter into the spirit of the thing. He tiptoed across the floor and shut the two iron gratings in the wall that in American houses supply hot air and are termed “registers.” Mr. Sidebotham had meanwhile found the paper he was looking for. He held it in front of him and tapped it once or twice with the back of his right hand as if it were a stage letter and himself the villain of the melodrama.
“This is a letter from Joel Garvey, my old partner,” he said at length. “You have heard me speak of him.”
The other bowed. He knew that many years before Garvey & Sidebotham had been well known in the Chicago financial world. He knew that the amazing rapidity with which they accumulated a fortune had only been surpassed by the amazing rapidity with which they had immediately afterwards disappeared into space. He was further aware–his position afforded facilities–that each partner was still to some extent in the other’s power, and that each wished most devoutly that the other would die.
The sins of his employer’s early years did not concern him, however. The man was kind and just, if eccentric; and Shorthouse, being in New York, did not probe to discover more particularly the sources whence his salary was so regularly paid. Moreover, the two men had grown to like each other and there was a genuine feeling of trust and respect between them.
“I hope it’s a pleasant communication, sir,” he said in a low voice.
“Quite the reverse,” returned the other, fingering the paper nervously as he stood in front of the fire.
“Blackmail, I suppose.”
“Precisely.” Mr. Sidebotham’s cigar was not burning well; he struck a match and applied it to the uneven edge, and presently his voice spoke through clouds of wreathing smoke.
“There are valuable papers in my possession bearing his signature. I cannot inform you of their nature; but they are extremely valuable to me. They belong, as a matter of fact, to Garvey as much as to me. Only I’ve got them–“
“I see.”
“Garvey writes that he wants to have his signature removed–wants to cut it out with his own hand. He gives reasons which incline me to consider his request–“
“And you would like me to take him the papers and see that he does it?”
“And bring them back again with you,” he whispered, screwing up his eyes into a shrewd grimace.
“And bring them back again with me,” repeated the secretary. “I understand perfectly.”
Shorthouse knew from unfortunate experience more than a little of the horrors of blackmail. The pressure Garvey was bringing to bear upon his old enemy must be exceedingly strong. That was quite clear. At the same time, the commission that was being entrusted to him seemed somewhat quixotic in its nature. He had already “enjoyed” more than one experience of his employer’s eccentricity, and he now caught himself wondering whether this same eccentricity did not sometimes go–further than eccentricity.
“I cannot read the letter to you,” Mr. Sidebotham was explaining, “but I shall give it into your hands. It will prove that you are my–er–my accredited representative. I shall also ask you not to read the package of papers. The signature in question you will find, of course, on the last page, at the bottom.”
There was a pause of several minutes during which the end of the cigar glowed eloquently.
“Circumstances compel me,” he went on at length almost in a whisper, “or I should never do this. But you understand, of course, the thing is a ruse. Cutting out the signature is a mere pretence. It is nothing. What Garvey wants are the papers themselves.“
The confidence reposed in the private secretary was not misplaced. Shorthouse was as faithful to Mr. Sidebotham as a man ought to be to the wife that loves him.
The commission itself seemed very simple. Garvey lived in solitude in the remote part of Long Island. Shorthouse was to take the papers to him, witness the cutting out of the signature, and to be specially on his guard against any attempt, forcible or otherwise, to gain possession of them. It seemed to him a somewhat ludicrous adventure, but he did not know all the facts and perhaps was not the best judge.
The two men talked in low voices for another hour, at the end of which Mr. Sidebotham drew up the blinds, opened the registers and unlocked the door.
Shorthouse rose to go. His pockets were stuffed with papers and his head with instructions; but when he reached the door he hesitated and turned.
“Well?” said his chief.
Shorthouse looked him straight in the eye and said nothing.
“The personal violence, I suppose?” said the other. Shorthouse bowed.
“I have not seen Garvey for twenty years,” he said; “all I can tell you is that I believe him to be occasionally of unsound mind. I have heard strange rumours. He lives alone, and in his lucid intervals studies chemistry. It was always a hobby of his. But the chances are twenty to one against his attempting violence. I only wished to warn you–in case–I mean, so that you may be on the watch.”
He handed his secretary a Smith and Wesson revolver as he spoke. Shorthouse slipped it into his hip pocket and went out of the room.