The Striker

The intruder flushed and lost his composure for an instant. “In the presence of such beauty,” he said stiffly, “I would consider an expression less crude.”

Congdon pulled a gun from his desk. “While I consider whether to have you beaten to a pulp or shoot you myself.”

“That is a privilege of wealth,” said Henry Clay. “But you would miss the greatest opportunity of your life. I will make an offer you will find irresistible.”

“I am rarely tempted.”

“But when you are, sir, you seize the opportunity.”

Clay cast a significant glance at Rodin’s passionate lovers. Then he nodded appreciatively at the bronze statuette on Congdon’s desk, which depicted the most recent of Congdon’s shapely young wives au naturel.

“My name is Henry Clay. I am a painter’s son by birth and a private detective by profession. I offer no threat, only promise. And I do it at great risk because you could have me beaten or killed.”

“So you’re a betting man?”

“Yes, sir. I am betting my life that you’ll see this opportunity for what it is.”

“What opportunity?”

“The opportunity to destroy the miners’ unions: the United Mine Workers in the east and the Western Federation of Miners in the west. Stop them dead, once and for all. It will be twenty years before another miner dares start a union, much less call a strike, anywhere on the continent. And here’s a sugarplum bonus for you. You will profit mightily knowing ahead of time to invest in businesses that will flourish when you destroy the unions.”

“By what means?”

“Every means. No holds barred.”

Congdon shook his head. “No. I risk everything if you are caught and turn blab-mouthed.”

“What would the word of a lowly detective be against the great Judge Congdon?”

Congdon fixed him with a gimlet eye. “‘The great Judge Congdon’ intends to be president of the United States. Unfortunately, that means convincing the ignorant people that he is above suspicion.”

“What could I blab? You can seal our deal with a nod. No signature, no contract. There is no way to record a nod.”

“Without a contract, you are betting on the groundless hope that I will reward you. What if I don’t?”

“I don’t need your reward.”

“Then why—”

“Here is all I need from you,” said Clay, and ticked items off on fastidiously manicured fingers. “Unlimited operating funds to do the job. Certain information that only you possess. Rail passes on all lines, and special trains to help me travel quickly about the continent. Permission to send and receive messages over the private closed telegraph wires leased by your brokers.”

Congdon interrupted with a sarcastic comment that the Interstate Commerce Commission forbid outsiders sending messages over leased wires.

Clay laughed. Brokers of stocks, bonds, and commodities bent that law day and night. “Speed and privacy are a matter of business.” He knew that he did not have to remind Congdon that owners and lessees of private wires got a jump on competitors who had to rely on Western Union’s slower public wires.

“In every city I operate, we will communicate swiftly and secretly through your branch offices.”

“Branch offices untraceable to me,” Congdon said sharply.

“Doesn’t a financier of your stature hold secret controlling interests in firms that lease private wires?”

Congdon ignored the flattery and demanded, “But what do you get out of this scheme?”

“Reputation. By rights, you will pay me handsomely when I succeed. But if you don’t — if you cheat me — it will not matter. I will be a made man.”

“How?”

“Henry Clay Investigations will become the detective agency to presidents and kings when the men who run this country learn who smashed the unions. When you are president, I, too, will be very big in Washington.”

Congdon mulled over Clay’s proposal. He was a famous judge of character. The detective, a robust physical specimen, possessed the steady gaze of a valuable man capable of finishing what he started. “What makes you so sure that this would appeal to me?”

“I have studied you, Judge Congdon. I understand you. I am a very good detective. I am the best.”

“You think you know me, do you? Have another look at my statue. Look close at The Kiss. Do you see anything unusual?”

Henry Clay did as Congdon ordered. He leaned close to the marble and let his eyes roam over the man and woman in passionate embrace. “I see a magnificent statue.”

“It draws you closer, doesn’t it?”

“It does. I am actually standing closer to it than I was a moment ago. But what is it you want me to see?”

“Look up.”

The skylight that illuminated the marble was ringed by a plaster frieze studded with tiny holes one-tenth the diameter of a dime.

“I see holes in the frieze. They’re barely visible.”

“Now look down.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Look down.”

In the pattern of the marble circle on which he was standing were dozens of similar holes. “I still don’t understand.”

“I will teach you two things about wealth, Mr. Best Detective. Wealth attracts lunatics. My old enemy Frick was shot and nearly killed in his own office by a lunatic ten years ago, which set me to thinking of my own safety. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“You said two things about wealth.”

“Common wisdom holds that coal is the source of all wealth. Like most common wisdom, that’s dead wrong. Coal is only fuel. It happens to be the best fuel at the moment, but it will be replaced by a better fuel. Oil is the coming fuel until the scientists come up with something even better, which they will. The real source of wealth for the past hundred years, and hundreds more to follow, is steam — hot steam made by boiling water with the cheapest and most efficient fuel available — wood, coal, oil, and whatever science dreams up next. Steam pushes pistons that drive locomotives. Steam whirls turbines to spin electricity. Steam storms through pipes under city streets to heat modern buildings like mine.”

Congdon reached for the bronze statuette of his current wife. He stroked it with his gnarled fingers.

“Steam scalds flesh. Steam from a mere teakettle will sear your hand with the most painful burn imaginable. Shortly after the attack on Frick, a six-inch steam riser in a building like this one ruptured. Escaping steam blasted through the walls as if they were made of paper. Every man and woman in the office died in an instant. They were found still seated at their desks, scalded head to toe, horribly disfigured, cooked to death inside and out. That set me to thinking about the lunatic attack on Mr. Frick. What he should have installed in his office — and what I have installed in mine — is a steam-powered lunatic stopper.”

Congdon tightened his grip on the bronze statuette.

“Do you notice anything peculiar about this statue of my new wife?”

Clay looked more closely and saw what he had missed earlier. The bronze was hinged to the top of the desk. “I see a hinge.”

“The hinge makes it a lever. When I move this lever, it will open a valve that will deliver a scalding hot three-hundred-and-fifty-degree blast of steam straight from the central boiler plant on Cortlandt Street to your skin, Best Detective Clay.”

Henry Clay eyed the holes in the floor and the ceiling.

“Scalding jets of high-pressure steam will cook you to death in seconds. The longest and worst, most painful seconds of your life.”

“It will kill you, too.”

“I’ll be unscathed. The jet holes are calculated to deliver just enough for you.”

“O.K.,” said Clay, “you caught me flat-footed. If you throw that lever, I’m dead.”

“Painfully dead.”

“Painfully dead.”

Hand firmly on the lever, James Congdon recognized a certain unique quality in Henry Clay: If the fellow felt fear, Congdon could not see it. In fact, it appeared that if Clay had one strength above all others, it was the strength to recognize the inevitable and accept it without complaint. A controlling interest in such a man could be a solid investment.