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OpenCms 7 Development

Extending and customizing OpenCms through its

Java API

Dan Liliedahl

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

www.it-ebooks.info
OpenCms 7 Development

Copyright © 2008 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of
the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold
without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing,
nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to
be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: April 2008

Production Reference: 1160408

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847191-05-2

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Karl Moore (karl.moore@ukonline.co.uk)

www.it-ebooks.info
 Credits

Author Project Manager

Dan Liliedahl Abhijeet Deobhakta

Reviewer Indexer
Olli Aro Rekha Nair

Senior Acquisition Editor Proofreader

Douglas Paterson Angie Butcher

Development Editor Production Coordinator

Nikhil Bangera Shantanu Zagade

Technical Editor Cover Work

Himanshu Panchal Shantanu Zagade

Editorial Team Leader

Mithil Kulkarni

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 About the Author

Dan Liliedahl is the founder and CTO of eFoundry Corporation, a premier

consulting company with expertise in selecting, specifying, and delivering Open
Source and commercial content management portal and collaboration systems. Since
starting eFoundry in 1998, he has architected and developed Web solutions for
Fortune 500 companies such as JPMorganChase, Disney, Sirius Satellite Radio, and
AMTRAK. Prior to starting eFoundry, Dan was a principal consultant and architect
with FutureTense, a start up commercial CMS product vendor, and Open Market,
whose products continue to have a strong market presence under a new company
name. In addition to his full-time work, Dan frequently donates his marketplace
and technical expertise to selected non‑profit organizations. He holds a degree in
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire
and has over 20 years of industry experience. In his spare time, he enjoys alpine
skiing, ice hockey and coaching his kids' soccer.

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I would like to thank the people at Packt who have helped me
along the way with this book, especially Douglas Paterson, Senior
Acquisition Editor for his initial guidance and ongoing support.
Thanks also to Abhijeet Deobhakta for his patience and for putting
up with many delays and missed deadlines. Many thanks to Olli
Arro and Himanshu Panchal for their time, comments, and helpful
suggestions. It is great people like these who have made this book
enjoyable to write and seem to go by quickly.

I also would like to thank Alexander Kandzior and his OpenCms

team. Beside building an outstanding product, they have always
been available for questions and help, despite their busy schedules.
I know their schedules are busy because they came out with four
versions of the software before this book was completed! Alex's
focus, diligence, obsession with quality, and professionalism has
made OpenCms and his company great.

Special thanks to my wife for her support and encouragement and

for keeping me going on those days I didn't want to. And of course,
to my three children for making me laugh and for tolerating the
times I couldn't spend with them.

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 About the Reviewer

Olli Aro hails from Finnish Lapland, but is based now in the north of England.
Olli Aro has over 10 years experience in the area of innovation and development of
software and web-based applications. In his current role as head of technology and
product development for Clicks and Links Ltd, Olli has been responsible for the
company's portfolio of Open Source-based solutions. He has been involved in the
OpenCms project since 2001 (version 4), contributing various open source modules
and bug fixes to the project. Olli was also involved in reviewing the previous version
of the OpenCms book. Prior to Clicks and Links, Olli worked for organizations such
as Nokia, eMobile Ltd, and CCC Systems Oy. In his spare time, he works on his own
social networking site, Breakaway Republix.

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 Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Overview 7
The Site Design 8
Required Developer Skills 12
Basic Site Development 12
Sites Requiring Custom Content Types 13
Sites Requiring Custom Features 14
Bespoke Site Development 14
OpenCms Application Overview 14
The OpenCms Directory Structure 15
The Real File System Layout 15
The Virtual File System Layout 18
OpenCms Architecture 19
Extensibility through Modules 20
The OpenCms Web Request Process 20
OpenCms Web Application Packaging 21
Building a Complete Site with OpenCms 21
Summary 22
Chapter 2: Developing in OpenCms 23
Developing Basic Site Content 23
Setting Up an Environment for Creating JSP Code 24
Editing Files Using File Synchronization 26
Using WebDAV for Editing 28
Debugging JSP Code in OpenCms 30
Setting Up an Eclipse Environment to Build OpenCms 33
Tools Needed to Build OpenCms in Eclipse 33
Step 1: Checkout the Project Source from CVS 34
Step 2: Setting the Classpath for Compilation 40
Step 3: Using Ant to Build a Distribution Package 41
Building OpenCms outside of Eclipse Using Ant 44
Debugging OpenCms in Eclipse 45

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Table of Contents

Setting Up an Eclipse Environment without Building OpenCms 46

Summary 47
Chapter 3: Our First Module 49
Understanding OpenCms Modules 50
Common Module Types 50
Module Events 51
Exporting and Importing Modules 51
Creating a Module 52
Creating a BlogEntry Content Type 55
Registering the Content Type 59
Additional Schema Features 66
Field Mappings 66
Field Validations 67
Default Field Values 67
Localization 68
Content Relationships 68
Content Previewing 69
Creating Content Using a Model 70
User Interface Widgets 70
Nested Content Definitions 80
Editing Configuration Files with Validating Editors 84
Organizing the Content 87
Summary 87
Chapter 4: Developing Templates 89
Review of the Page Layout 89
Templates in OpenCms 94
Creating the Templates 94
The Homepage Template 95
The Blog Content Loop 97
The Sidebar and Footer 99
Common Code Elements 100
Header Code 101
Search Form 102
Advertisements 102
Blog Archives 103
RSS Client and RSS Feeds 105
Footer Section 106
The Supporting Java Bean Class 106
The Blog Template 112
The Content and Template Loading Process 113
Expressions in JSP Templates 115
Using the Tag Library from JSP 115

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 Table of Contents

Combining Expressions with JSTL 116

Accelerating Template Development Using WebDAV 117
Install the Eclipse WebDAV Plug-in 118
Create a Site Within Eclipse for the Server 120
Import Content into the Project 122
Summary 124
Chapter 5: Adding Site Search 125
A Quick Overview of Lucene 125
Search Indexes 125
Search Queries 127
Configuring OpenCms Search 127
Field Configurations 128
Creating a Field Configuration 130
Creating an Index Source 133
Additional Search Settings 136
Introducing Luke – a Visual Index Tool 137
Writing the Search Code 140
A Simple Search Example 140
Subclassing the CmsSearch Bean 143
The Search.jsp Template 145
Summary 151
Chapter 6: Adding User Registration and Comment Support 153
Understanding OpenCms Security 153
User, Groups, Roles, and Permissions 154
Organizational Units 157
Setting up Security for Our Site 158
Organization Unit and Group Setup 159
Adding the Users 163
Resource Permissions 166
User Login and Registration Code 169
Adding Comment Support 178
Adding the Comments to the XML Content 181
Publishing the Comments 183
Summary 184
Chapter 7: Providing Site Customization Features 185
What is RSS? 185
Creating the Module 186
The RSS Client Code 187
Displaying the RSS Feed in the Template 189
Adding User Preferences to Accounts 190

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Table of Contents

Updating the Java Code 191

Updating the JSP Templates 193
Hooking up the Account Management Page 196
Summary 198
Chapter 8: Extending OpenCms: Developing a Custom Widget 199
Designing a Custom Widget 199
Designing the Widget 201
The Widget Code 202
Custom Source Interface and Implementations 207
Using OpenCms Message Strings for Localization 212
Registering the Widget with OpenCms 213
Summary 214
Chapter 9: Extending OpenCms: Adding RSS Feed Support 215
RSS Feed Design 215
The RSS Feed Content Type 218
Creating a Supporting Widget 223
The RSS Feed Template and Java Classes 226
Content Wrapper Java Classes 231
Wrapping It Up 236
Summary 238
Chapter 10: Extending OpenCms: Adding an Administration Point 239
Administrative Points 239
The Administration View 243
Hooking the Administration Point Up to the Module 245
The RSS Administration Module 246
Leveraging the OpenCms Dialog Classes 250
The Feed Manager Class 259
The New Channel Action 265
Summary 270
Index 271

[ iv ]

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 Preface
OpenCms can be used by Java developers to create sophisticated add-ons and
customizations that extend the power of OpenCms in virtually unlimited directions.
Starting by showing how to set up a development environment for OpenCms
work, this book moves you through various tasks of increasing complexity. Some
of the common tasks covered are building OpenCms, XML asset type development,
templating, module development, user and role setup, and search integration. In
addition to these common tasks some more advanced topics are covered such as
self-registering users, RSS support, developing custom widgets, and extending the
administrative interface. All the topics include examples and are presented while
building a sample blog site.

This book is a clear, practical tutorial to OpenCms development. It will take you
through the development of an example site, illustrating the key concepts of
OpenCms development with examples at every stage.

What This Book Covers

Chapter 1 starts out by describing a sample site that will be created to demonstrate
OpenCms development concepts. It also provides a description of the developer
skills required for OpenCms development, followed by a basic overview
of OpenCms architecture. We also provide a basic description of OpenCms
configuration files and their file locations.

Chapter 2 sets the stage for coding by providing details on how to set up various
OpenCms development environments. The chapter includes a step-by-step
procedure for using Eclipse to check out and build OpenCms from the CVS
repository. The chapter describes how to build OpenCms using Ant and also how to
debug OpenCms itself.

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Preface

Chapter 3 begins with an explanation of OpenCms modules, including a guide for

creating a new module. The module is used to define a new content type, which is
another concept covered in the chapter. Included in the content type discussion is a
complete, step-by-step guide for designing and creating a new content type used to
contain blog entries. All aspects of content type schema files are covered, including
schema design, widget usage, field selectors, field validations, nested definitions, and
registration. At the end of the chapter, the content type may be used to create new
blog entries.

Chapter 4 continues developing the sample site by covering JSP template coding.
A set of templates is created to display the blog content, including a complete run
through of how they are put together. The example illustrates the use of custom
template coding beyond the standard OpenCms tag library by sub-classing Java
template classes. Included in the chapter is an overview of the resource and template
loading mechanism. Also relating to templates is a description of using expressions
and JSTL within template code. Lastly in the chapter is a guide to using WebDAV for
template editing in Eclipse.

Chapter 5 covers the usage of Lucene within OpenCms, beginning with an overview
of basic Lucene concepts. This is followed by an in-depth guide to creating a search
index in OpenCms. The guide provides an example of building a new search index
for the blog site example and describes a developer tool, which may be used to
perform test queries against the index. The chapter includes a walkthrough of
implementing a search form in OpenCms for simple cases and for more
advanced situations.

Chapter 6 continues the build out of the sample site by adding support for users
and commenting. It starts with an explanation of OpenCms security, including a
discussion on Roles, Groups, Users, and Organizational Units. It then proceeds with
the set up of the group and role structure for the sample, and shows how they are
used within the code.

Chapter 7 shows how easy it is to support user customizations of site pages. It then
show an example of this by adding RSS feed support to the sample site, allowing
users to specify a custom feed. Included in the chapter is a discussion of integrating
third-party libraries into OpenCms.

Chapter 8 describes the custom widget interface, and then shows how to design and
create a widget. The widget provides a pluggable data interface that is used to obtain
a list of selection values for a select list. The chapter then illustrates how to read XML
content fields by creating a list source that gets its values from any content field.
Finally, the chapter shows how to localize message strings and how to register and
use the custom widget.

[]

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 Preface

Chapter 9 shows how RSS feeds can be generated from OpenCms content. It also
shows how wrapper classes can be used around structured content items to make
them easier to work with, and then walks through creation of an RSS feed generation
module using these concepts.

Chapter 10 discusses how administration points are created in OpenCms, and also
how to use OpenCms dialog classes. The chapter also discusses how widgets can
be used programmatically. An example administration point is created that ties
together topics from previous chapters, showing how to use widgets, dialogs, and
multiple screens.

What You Need for This Book

Tools needed and used for this book:

• MySQL database server

• Apache Tomcat web server
• OpenCms 7.0.2 version (New files might have been added in newer version
of OpenCms and some files, like jar files, might not be in the book-specified
location).
• Sun Java JDK 1.5
• Eclipse WTP 1.5.4
• Apache Ant 1.70
• Sysdeo Eclipse Tomcat Launcher plug-in
• Oracle JDBC Driver

Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between
different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an
explanation of their meaning.

There are three styles for code. Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can
include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code will be set as follows:

<jsp:useBean id="search" scope="request"
class="org.opencms.search.CmsSearch">
<jsp:setProperty name="search" property="*"/>
<% search.init(cms.getCmsObject()); %>
</jsp:useBean�
>

[]

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Preface

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the
relevant lines or items will be made bold:
<mappings>
<mapping suffix=".jsp" />
<mapping suffix=".html" /> (add this line)
<mapping suffix=".htm" /> (add this line)
</mappings>

Any command-line input and output is written as follows:

>ant –propertyfile opencms.properties [target]

New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you
see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this:
"clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".

Important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader Feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about
this book, what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us
to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply drop an email to feedback@packtpub.com,

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If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing
or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

[]

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 Preface

Customer Support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to
help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the Example Code for the Book

Visit http://www.packtpub.com/files/code/1052_Code.zip to directly
download the example code.

The downloadable files contain instructions on how to use them.

Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our contents, mistakes
do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in text or
code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing this you can
save other readers from frustration, and help to improve subsequent versions of
this book. If you find any errata, report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.
com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the Submit Errata link, and entering
the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be
accepted and the errata are added to the list of existing errata. The existing errata can
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Questions
You can contact us at questions@packtpub.com if you are having a problem with
some aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.

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www.it-ebooks.info
 Overview
This book is a guide for developers interested in building websites using the
OpenCms content management system. The book is intended for developers
who are familiar with Java, JSP, and building web applications based on the
Java J2EE framework.

In this book, we will develop a website designed for a blog writer. In the course of
building our site, we will go over these topics:

• The site design

• Overview of OpenCms
• Setting up an OpenCms development environment
• Creating structured content types
• Creating templates
• Utilizing search
• Extending OpenCms
• Allowing online users to contribute site content

We will go over all the steps involved in building a blog website using OpenCms.
We will start by describing the features and requirements of our website and will
then provide an overview of OpenCms. Next, we will discuss how to create a
development environment. We then will go over the steps involved in creating
structured content types, to hold our site content. After that, we will cover creation
of templates and Java code, to display the content. The site also supports search and
user comments;, so we will cover the Lucene search engine as well to show how to
provide login support. As the site additionally supports RSS clients and feeds, we
will discuss how to add new features to OpenCms.

Before we get into the development details, we will first discuss some of the skills
required to develop sites with OpenCms. This will provide us with a basis
for understanding the environment and tools, which we will need to do our
development work.

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Overview

The Site Design

Before the development of any site can begin, there should be an understanding of
the site's feature requirements. The feature requirements will often be driven by the
actual layout and design of the site. We will design and build a blog website named
'Deep Thoughts'. The design of the site homepage layout looks like this:

[]

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 Chapter 1

The blog site is designed to support the following features:

• Blogs are listed in descending order of date, with the most recent blog
appearing at the top.
• Each blog entry is listed in teaser style, with a link to the full blog appearing
at the end.
• Blog entries support a list of topics attached to them.
• Archives of previous blogs appear on the righthand side, in
descending order.
• Past blog archives can be browsed.
• The site supports contents search with paginated results.
• Ads may be placed on the righthand side.
• Users may self register for the site.
• Registered users may add comments and create a customized RSS feed on
their homepage.
• Blogs may be viewed in various RSS formats.

In addition to the features seen in the mockup, we will also support:

• Direct editing of content in preview mode.

• User submitted comments.

[]

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Overview

There are two additional mockups for the site. The first one shows a detailed view of
a blog. This view is shown when a user clicks on a blog from the homepage:

[ 10 ]

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 Chapter 1

The last mockup shows what the search result screen looks like. Search results are
shown in decreasing order of relevance to the search term. The pagination controls at
the bottom of the page allow for the results to be scrolled, if necessary:

[ 11 ]

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Overview

Required Developer Skills

The level of technology and coding skills required to do site development will
vary depending upon the requirements and features of the site. Designing and
architecting a site that properly utilizes and leverages OpenCms is an exercise
in itself, which we will not discuss in this book. However, we will discuss the
development tasks that are involved, once the architecture has been designed. In
general, we can think of four different developer levels and skills.

Basic Site Development

OpenCms may be used to manage content right after installation. One way of using
it is to import static files into the Virtual File System (VFS) and utilize the publishing
and version control features to manage them. In this scenario, files from an existing
non-content managed website may easily be content managed. Files in the VFS
may be created, edited, and previewed in the offline staging area, before they are
published to the online file system. When published, versions can be taken to allow
for roll back, if necessary.

Files in the VFS may also be exported to the Real File System (RFS) and served
statically or by a web server. In this way, the website can operate in exactly the same
way it did, prior to being placed into OpenCms, except for the fact that it is now
version controlled. The following illustration shows how OpenCms can be used in
this fashion:

Utilizing OpenCms this way is straightforward, needs little, if any development

effort, and probably doesn't require use of this book! However, it is worth
mentioning here that there are a number of sites that can take advantage of this.

[ 12 ]

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 Chapter 1

For this developer audience, the skill levels will include the following:

• Operational understanding of the use of OpenCms

• Operational knowledge of Application, Web, and Database servers
• HTML coding capabilities

OpenCms also provides a sample site called TemplateOne, packaged as a module.

This module contains structured content types and templates. Although somewhat
complex and confusing, content types and templates provided with TemplateOne
may be used to construct sites without requiring development work. The
documentation for these templates may be downloaded from the OpenCms website
and installed into OpenCms.

Sites Requiring Custom Content Types

After looking at the TemplateOne samples, we may soon realize that it does not quite
address our site requirements. Perhaps, the template layouts are not what we desire
or the structured content types do not contain the fields necessary to hold our data.
In this case, we will want to develop our own JSP code and extend or create our own
custom content types. This level of development will require some understanding of
Java, JSPs and XML.

This type of development involves working within the framework provided by

OpenCms, to define the templates, content types, and JSPs, and also perhaps java
classes that we need. Developing, at this level, does not require us to utilize a
development environment such as Eclipse or Netbeans. But we will probably want to
use a nice editor for our JSP and XML code.

Before undertaking this task, we will want to understand the feature and content
requirements of our site in detail. This will allow us to properly design the templates
and custom content types, which our site will need. This is a design exercise which
will not be touched upon in this book. However, we will discuss the specific tasks
required in implementing templates and the custom content types once they have
been designed.

For this type of development, the developer requires first level skills plus:

• Understanding of OpenCms modules

• Basic Java and JSP coding skills
• Understanding of OpenCms configuration
• Understanding of OpenCms content types

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Overview

Sites Requiring Custom Features

There are different types of projects that require integration of features which are not
provided with OpenCms. For example, we may need a feature that automatically
imports data from a back office application into a structured content type. Or
perhaps we need to create a content type that we can easily use to define RSS feeds
from articles in our site. For these types of projects, we will want to code in Java,
using a development environment. We will also probably want to build OpenCms
for ourselves, so that we can step through the source and gain a better understanding
of how our own code will need to work. We will discuss how to do these, in the later
chapters of this book.

Developing custom features in OpenCms will require the second level skills, plus:

• Advanced Java coding skills

• Understanding of OpenCms Java interfaces

Bespoke Site Development

The last type of development level is custom development, where OpenCms is used
as a base framework or platform, and a custom site interface is built on top of it. This
type of development might be suitable where the Workplace Explorer is too general,
and a more task-specific user interface is required.

Developing, at this level, requires the third level skills, plus:

• Knowledge of OpenCms architecture and

• Familiarity with OpenCms code

This type of development is not covered in this book.

OpenCms Application Overview

Before undertaking development, it will be helpful to understand the basic design of
OpenCms. OpenCms is structured as a typical J2EE web application conforming to a
3-tier web application architecture:

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false Du Chainat would be apprehended. If he appeared against the
scoundrel or entered a complaint the resultant revelation of how
easily he had been fleeced would be a bitter pill to swallow. Old
Langhorne would recall that conversation of the previous day, and it
would be his turn to smile, while Foulkes and George would descend
upon him with galling criticism and reproach.
He could endure it all, however, if only it would mean the
recovery of his money or even a portion of it! As his hope of getting
away vanished, the absolute need of such escape grew in his
thoughts until it assumed the proportions of an obsession. He felt as
if something he could not name were tightening about him slowly
but inexorably and he struggled wildly to free himself from the
invisible fetters.
If he had to stay on at the trust company, suffer George’s
continual presence, run the daily gauntlet of mingled sympathy and
curiosity of his friends, he should go mad! Other men lived down
tragedies, went on in the same old rut until the end of time, but he
could not.
And then all at once the truth burst upon him! If Leila had died a
natural death as the world supposed; if she had been taken from
him in the high tide of their love and happiness, he might have gone
on with existence again in time with no thought of cutting himself
adrift from the past. It was the secret knowledge of his guilt which
was driving him forth, which rendered unendurable all the familiar
things of his every-day life!
Yet he must endure them! Unless the bogus Du Chainat were
caught there was no way out for him.
Unconscious of irony, his breast swelled with virtuous indignation
at thought of the swindler and dire were the anathemas he heaped
upon the departed one. He searched the papers feverishly, made
what inquiries he dared without drawing undue attention to himself
and haunted the Belterre grill for news, but all to no avail; and as
day succeeded day he developed a savage moroseness which
rebuffed even George’s overtures. He would take no one into his
confidence; there would be time enough for admitting that he had
played the fool when the miscreant was caught. If he were not,
Storm determined to accept the inevitable in silence; but day by day
the obsession of flight increased. Somehow, at any price, he must
get away!
The papers still played up the pseudo Du Chainat as further
exploits of that wily adventurer were brought to light, and the press
gleefully baited the police for their inability to discover whither he
had flown. The flickering hope that he would be apprehended died
slowly in Storm’s breast, and the blankness of despair settled upon
him.
One morning Nicholas Langhorne sent for him, and before the
president spoke Storm sensed a subtle difference in his manner. The
pompous official attitude seemed to have been laid aside, for once a
warmly personal note crept into his voice.
“Sit down, Storm; I want to have a little talk with you.” The other
seated himself and waited, but Langhorne seemed in no hurry to
begin. He took off his glasses, wiped them, replaced them and then
sat meditatively fingering a pen. At last he threw it aside and turned
abruptly to face his subordinate.
“Storm, I knew your father well. We both started here away
down on the lowest rung of the ladder, and although he soon
branched out into a wider, less conservative field we never allowed
our friendship to flag. It was on his account that we took you, and
because of his memory you were given preference over more
experienced men.”
He paused and Storm stiffened, but he replied warily:
“I am aware of that, Mr. Langhorne. I hope that I have executed
my duties——”
Langhorne waved him to silence.
“I have no complaint to make. I sent for you because my
personal interest in you as the son of my old friend has caused me a
certain amount of disquietude. When you came to me a fortnight
ago and requested that I arrange an immediate mortgage on your
suburban property I waived the usual procedure and complied at
once. It was not my province to question your need or use of the
money, although I knew of your previous unfortunate ventures, and
I hoped that you had not again been ill-advised.
“A week later—ten days ago, to be exact—you came to me and
mentioned a person named Du Chainat, whom you said had been in
negotiation with Mr. Whitmarsh. This Du Chainat, or rather the man
impersonating him, has been exposed as a swindler on a rather
large scale. I trust that you yourself did not fall a victim to him?”
Storm’s eyes flashed, but he held himself rigidly in control. Bleat
to this fathead and give him an opportunity to gloat? He would see
him damned first!
“Hardly, Mr. Langhorne.” He allowed the ghost of a smile to lift
the corners of his mouth. “The investment I had in mind was quite
another sort.”
Langhorne frowned doubtfully.
“You appeared to take it for granted that I knew this Du Chainat.
May I ask what your motive was in mentioning him to me?”
Storm hesitated and then replied with seeming candor:
 “Well, if you want the truth, Mr. Langhorne, I—er, I believed that
you yourself were one of his intended victims.”
“I, sir?” The president stared.
“Yes. I met this man in the Rochefoucauld grill one night, and he
worked his usual game; told me of the loan he was attempting to
negotiate and said Whitmarsh had turned it down because it wasn’t
a big enough proposition for him. Du Chainat, as he called himself,
showed me your letter, and as I had reason to distrust him I
ventured to mention the matter to you, thinking that I might be of
service in warning you of the whispers I had heard against him.”
“My letter?” Langhorne gripped the arms of his chair. “I never
wrote a letter to the man in my life!”
“When you denied having heard of him,” Storm continued,
unmoved by the other’s expostulation, “I naturally concluded that
you resented my intrusion into your private affairs, and said nothing
more. The man was exposed in the evening papers that very night,
as I remember.”
“You saw a letter purporting to have been written by me?” the
president demanded.
“I would have been willing to swear to your signature, Mr.
Langhorne,” replied Storm.
“Forgery!” The clenched hand came down upon his desk. “That
signature was forged! I’ll look into this when the fellow is caught. His
effrontery is astounding! What was the gist of this letter, Storm?”
“An intimation that you would advance the loan,” he responded
dully. There was no mistaking now the sincerity of the other’s
indignation. “The letter was a forgery, of course, as you say, but it
was a remarkably clever one. The signature was almost identical in
every detail with yours.”
“I wish you had told me of this before!” The president fumed.
“This may cause a vast amount of trouble. However, I am glad to be
assured that you were not victimized by this person. By the way, this
is not my custom—in fact it is emphatically against my rule,
especially where officers of the company are concerned—but I shall
be glad to make an exception in your case, Storm. I may be able to
give you a little advance information, strictly confidential, you
understand, on a certain investment later, if you are looking for one.”
“Thank you, Mr. Langhorne. I’m not thinking of making any just
now.” He smiled again, reading the other’s motive, and added
pointedly: “I have mentioned the Du Chainat letter to no one else, of
course, nor shall I do so.”
The president flushed but dismissed him with forced cordiality,
and Storm returned to his own sanctum in a bitter mood. Even the
small satisfaction of believing that Langhorne, too, had fallen for the
alluring proposition was denied him!
At noon, as he left the trust company building to go to the
luncheon club of which he was a member, he collided with Millard.
“Hello, there! Just coming in to see you.” The little man’s usually
apoplectic face was pale, and his small, beady eyes shifted nervously
beneath Storm’s gaze. “Where are you off to?”
“Lunch,” replied the other briefly. Confound the little golf hound!
It was he who got him into the Du Chainat affair!
“Then have it with me, do!” Millard urged. “I want to talk to you.
Let’s run in to Peppini’s where we can be quiet.”
Storm was on the point of refusal, but something in the other’s
manner made him change his mind.
“If you like.” He turned, and Millard fell into step beside him.
“How’s the golf coming along?”
“Hang golf!” Millard exploded. “I’ve had other things on my mind,
Storm, old chap! I’ve been in the very devil of a hole, and Mrs. M.—
well, you know what she is when she has got anything on me! I
haven’t had a minute’s peace.”
“What’s the trouble?” Storm asked perfunctorily as they entered
the little restaurant and made for a corner table. Millard did not reply
until the waiter had taken their order and departed. Then he leaned
confidentially across the table.
“It’s all about the scoundrel, Du Chainat,” he began. “You
remember him; chap I introduced to you in the Rochefoucauld. By
Jove, I owe you an apology for that!”
“Not at all.” A hidden thought made Storm’s lips curl in grim
humor. “We are all of us apt to be mistaken in the people we think
we know.”
“That’s what I say!” corroborated Millard eagerly. “How’re you
going to tell a crook nowadays? The fellow took me in absolutely!
And now, to hear Mrs. M. talk you would think I had been in league
with him!”
“You tried to get her to go into one of his schemes, didn’t you?”
Storm asked. The other nodded gloomily.
“I did, and I shall never be permitted to hear the last of it!” he
observed. “That isn’t what is worrying me, though. You see, I
introduced him around pretty generally, and if any of my friends fell
for his graft I should feel personally responsible. There you are, for
instance; that’s what I wanted to see you about, Storm; I hope to
the Lord that you didn’t——”
“Not by a damn sight!” Storm retorted savagely. Was he to go
through a repetition of the scene with Langhorne? “What do you
take me for? I’m not looking to line the pockets of every adventurer
that comes along.”
Millard winced.
“All right, old chap, only I was anxious. You seemed interested
that night.”
“I was, in the man himself; he was a new type to me, but I don’t
mind telling you now that I didn’t trust him.” Storm smiled
patronizingly. “I don’t wonder his little proposition looked good to
you. It did to me; too good. Money isn’t so scarce for a legitimate
deal that a man has to offer one hundred per cent profit in three
months. You would have realized that yourself if you had stopped to
think. The trouble with you was that the man’s personality blinded
you, Millard. I’ll admit that he was a plausible rascal, but if anyone
had been fool enough to fall for his game they deserved what was
coming to them.”
“I suppose so,” Millard mumbled shamefacedly. “Anyhow, they’ve
got him now.”
“What!” Storm sat back in his chair.
“Fact. I’ve just come from Police Headquarters.” Millard nodded,
visibly cheered by the impression his announcement had made. “It
has been established beyond a doubt that he is on board the Alsace
en route for France. He’ll be arrested the moment they reach Havre.”
Storm’s brain whirled, yet he strove mightily to command himself.
Millard must not know, must not guess! Could it be after all that luck
had not deserted him? Hope had died so utterly that he found it
difficult to believe this sudden turn of fortune.
“How can they be sure?” he stammered. “There may be some
mistake.”
“Not a chance!” Millard, his equanimity restored, chattered on.
“His movements have been traced from the moment he left the hotel
until he walked up the gangplank, and they’ve got him dead to
rights. Nervy of him to go back to France when he knew the
Government was out after him, wasn’t it? I suppose he banked on
that; that they would never dream he would dare to return. He’s
under a different name, of course, and all that, but the detectives
have been in wireless communication with the captain of the Alsace
and there isn’t a loophole of escape for him. He is cornered like a rat
in a trap and a good job, too!”
The garrulity of his companion had given Storm time to collect
himself. He must learn all that he could and yet not seem too eager.
He shrugged.
“His cleverness didn’t get him far, did it?” he remarked with
elaborate carelessness. “Let’s see; the Alsace sailed three days ago,
if I am not mistaken.”
“Four,” the other corrected him. “She won’t reach port for another
three days, however; traveling slow, for there has been a report of
some floating mines having been sighted in her path. It is just a wild
rumor, of course; the sweepers gathered them in pretty thoroughly
after the war. Don’t know what they’ll do about extraditing him, for
both countries want him badly. The main thing his victims want, I
imagine, is to get their money back.”
In this Storm concurred heartily but in silence. After a pause he
observed, still in that detached, bored tone:
“I fancy that won’t be difficult, if he has it with him.”
“He has,” Millard affirmed. “He must have cleared more than half
a million, they tell me at Headquarters, and they’ve proved that he
didn’t dispose of any of it here. Think of it! Half a million in cash! I
wonder how he planned to explain it to the custom’s officials on the
other side?”
“He could stow it about him, I suppose,” Storm responded
absently. “If he had laid his plans carefully and believed himself
immune from suspicion he would have no reason to anticipate a
personal search. What on earth were you doing at Headquarters?”
Millard squirmed uneasily.
“We-ell, when all this racket came out about Du Chainat I felt
that it was my duty to go down and tell all I knew about the fellow.
In the course of justice, you know, old chap——”
“Precisely,” Storm grinned. “You had rather identified yourself
with him, hadn’t you? I don’t blame you for clearing your own skirts.
It would be deucedly awkward for you if some of these people you
presented him to——”
“Don’t!” protested Millard. “How was I to know? He came to me
with a forged letter purporting to be from Harry Wheeler, of Boston.
I haven’t seen Harry in years; wouldn’t know his handwriting from
Adam, but it looked all right. When I explained, they understood the
situation immediately at Headquarters, I assure you.”
“Don’t ‘assure’ me, Millard; I know you!” Storm laughed; then his
face sobered. “How is everyone out at the Country Club?”
“Fine!” Millard waxed enthusiastic at the welcome change of
topic. “We’ve taken on some more members; a new family or two
from out Summit View way, and a most attractive widow. We talk of
you a lot, Storm. You can’t think what a gap your poor wife’s death
and your leaving us has made in the community! She was a
wonderful little woman! You’ve no idea how she is missed.”
“I think I have,” Storm responded quietly.
“Oh, forgive me, old chap!” Millard flushed with honest contrition.
“You more than anyone else in the world must feel—but I’m glad to
see that you are not taking it too hard.”
Storm shot a quick glance at him. Was there a suggestion of
criticism in the other’s tone?
“One cannot always see,” he said stiffly. “Sometimes a thing cuts
too deep to show on the surface. But I can’t talk about it even yet,
Millard. I can’t find words.”
He couldn’t. One thought alone was racing through his brain. His
sixty thousand was safe, after all! It would be given into his hands
again, and he would be free! Free from these hypocritical mouthings
about a dead past, these constant reminders of the old life!
What a fool he had been to disclaim so emphatically to both
Langhorne and Millard the fact that he had been victimized! How
they would laugh at him when the truth came out! Well, let them!
Unconsciously he squared his shoulders. He would have the last
laugh, sixty thousand of them! God, what a reprieve!
The afternoon passed in a glamor of renewed hope and revived
plans. No more trifling with investments for him! When once the
money was safely in his possession again he would throw up his
position without a day’s delay and catch the first steamer that sailed,
no matter for what port she cleared. Anywhere! Any war-riddled,
God-forsaken corner of the globe would be heaven after this caged
existence, surrounded by potential spies—and judges!
He was dimly aware that those with whom he came in contact
that afternoon gazed at him curiously, but for once he was heedless
of their possible criticism. The exalted mood lasted throughout his
solitary dinner, and on returning to his apartments he ignored a
painfully spelled message which Homachi had left requesting him to
call up ‘Mr. Holworti’ and paced the floor in utter abandonment to
the joy which consumed him.
His days of slavery and imprisonment were over! Just at the
moment when life had looked blackest to him and all hope was
gone, the shackles were struck from him and the way lay open to a
new existence. Never again would he decry his luck! His capital,
which had shrunk to insignificance before the wild idea of doubling
it, now loomed large before him. It meant freedom, life!
He would go to the Far East. Many changes were bound to come
there, many opportunities would arise in the general upheaval of
worldwide readjustment to the new order of things, and the colorful
atmosphere there had always held a fascination for him. Europe
would do later, but at first he would lose himself in the glamor of a
new world.
 He halted, drawn from his reverie by the sound of confused,
raucous shouting in the street, and realized vaguely that it had been
going on for some time. His apartment was on the ground floor, and
he opened a window of the living-room and leaned out. The Drive
seemed deserted, but on the block below he descried two retreating
figures with flat white bundles beneath their arms.
Their shrill call came again to his ears.
“Wuxtry! Turr’ble disaster! . . . All on board!”
A train wreck, perhaps. Storm was withdrawing his head when
from the second newsboy came the cry which struck terror to his
heart.
“French steamer wrecked at sea! Awful loss of life!”
The Alsace! For a moment Storm stood as though petrified; then,
turning, he dashed hatless from the apartment and out into the
street. The newsboy raced toward him and he tore a paper from the
grasp of the foremost, thrust some silver into his hand and made for
the apartment once more. He dared not halt beneath a street lamp
to read the staring headlines; he must be secure from observation
behind closed doors when he learned the truth.
It might be some other ship. It must be! Fate would not hold out
this promise of a reprieve to him only to snatch it away just as his
fingers closed upon it!
Again in his apartment, he approached the lamp and spread the
paper out with shaking fingers. There in bold black letters which
seemed to dance mockingly before him he read:—
“S. S. Alsace Lost at Sea. No survivors.”
He tried to read on, but the letters ran together before his eyes,
and he dashed the paper to the floor. The walls of his prison closed
in upon him again, stiflingly, relentlessly! The cup had once more
been dashed from his lips, and a groan of utter despair surged up
from his heart while the bitterness of death settled upon him.
 Chapter XIII.
The Black Bag
Morning found Storm with a desperate, hunted look in his eyes
still pacing the floor, his heart sick within him. Why had that
blundering ass, Millard, told him yesterday? Why had he been
plunged in the madness of a fool’s paradise for a few short hours,
only to be drawn back into an existence that had become all the
more unbearable by contrast?
He had contrived a sufficient measure of calmness in the late
hours to read the amplification of the damning headlines. The Alsace
was supposed to have struck one of the floating mines of which she
had been warned, and to have gone down with all on board. No calls
for help had been received by wireless, no survivors picked up.
Another liner, westward bound, had run into a mass of wreckage on
the course of the unfortunate ship; wreckage which denoted a
fearful explosion and fragments of which bore the name “Alsace”.
That was all; but it was conclusive, damning to Storm’s last hope.
The morning’s news had little to add save a verification of the
ocean tragedy in a message radioed from a second ship which had
encountered the flotsam of the wreck. It was evident beyond
peradventure of a doubt that the ill-fated Alsace had been blown to
atoms, and all on board must have perished instantly with her.
The article was followed by a copy of the passenger list together
with brief obituaries of the more prominent of the wreck’s victims,
and beneath it was a terse paragraph which verified Millard’s
disclosures of the previous day. The notorious swindler, Jan Martens,
alias Maurice du Chainat, was known to have been on board, and
arrangements had been made to take him in custody upon the
arrival of the ship at her destination; in fact he had been placed
nominally under arrest by the captain of the Alsace, as the last
wireless message known to have been sent out from the unfortunate
ship announced. It was feared that the bulk of the money netted by
his gigantic swindle had gone down with him.
Storm left his breakfast untasted, deaf to the polite concern of
Homachi, and took his miserable way to the trust company. God,
how he loathed it all! The very sight of his desk, familiar through
long years of usage, awoke anew the spirit of senseless, futile revolt;
doubly futile now since the mirage of a different future had risen
again only to be blotted out.
In the bitterness of soul which surpassed anything he had known
in his blackest hours, Storm forced himself to go through with the
dreary round; but the close of day found him desperate, at bay. He
could not go on! What was the use, anyway? What did the future
hold for him now? Only memories which rose up in the silent hours
to take him by the throat, from which there could be no escape
while life lasted!
With the waning afternoon the sky had become overcast, and
twilight brought a gentle summer rain through which Storm plodded
doggedly. Food was distasteful, the thought of a restaurant was
abhorrent to him in his morose mood, and yet he shrank from hours
of solitude in his apartment. He was afraid of himself, afraid to think,
and he longed desperately for the companionship of a fellow being;
not George nor anyone connected with his life of the past ten years,
but someone unconcerned in his affairs, someone with whom he
could talk and forget.
He had seized upon the trivial excuse of a call at his cigarette
importer’s as an expedient to while away a half hour. The
tobacconist’s shop was just across the street from the Grand Central
Station, and as Storm passed among the arrivals who swarmed out
of the edifice one face in the crowd caught his eye. Little of it was
visible, the collar of his light summer ulster turned up to meet it, and
he tramped along beneath his umbrella without glancing to right or
left.
Storm caught him impulsively by the arm.
“Jack!” he cried. “Where on earth did you drop from?”
 The stranger shook him off unceremoniously.
“Your mistake, I’m afraid———” he mumbled.
“I beg your pardon.” Storm stepped aside. “Sorry to have
accosted you, sir. I thought that you were—yes, by Jove! You are
Jack Horton! Don’t you know me, old man?”
The stranger hesitated and then with a hearty ring in his voice
which he checked instantly as he glanced cautiously about him.
“You’ve got me!” he exclaimed with subdued joviality. “I’m Jack,
all right, and of course I know you, Norman, you old scout! I meant
to pass you up, though; fact is, I’ve got no business to stop in town
now. For the love of Pete, if you’ve got nothing to do, take me
somewhere where we can get a bite and have a good old chin
without a lot of folks giving us the once-over!”
Storm was mystified. This pal of his freshman year at college
whom Providence had thrust in his path this night of all nights when
he needed human companionship seemed to be in some strange
predicament, but he did not stop to question. He was only too glad
of the promised relief from solitude.
“Come along! I’ve got just the place. Lord, but it’s good to see
you! We’ll go straight up to my own rooms. My man will have gone,
but I can rustle up some grub and anything else you feel like
having.”
He gestured toward the line of waiting taxicabs, but Horton drew
back.
“Where are you living?” he asked, with a trace of nervousness.
“Riverside Drive,” Storm replied impatiently. “Come on, old man,
your umbrella’s leaking.”
“Is there a subway station near you?”
“Yes, of course, only a block or two away. But what in the——”
“Never mind now. Let’s go up that way,” his friend proposed. “I’m
not stuck on these taxis under the present circumstances. A lot of
the fellows that drive them are crooks, and you never can tell——.
Me for the subway, and don’t talk too much on the way up, Norman.
This is serious business.”
“All right,” Storm acquiesced shortly. “But let me carry that bag,
won’t you? You’ve got enough with that umbrella and brief case.”
 “Not on your life!” responded Horton with emphasis. “I’ll carry it
myself. You lead the way, Norman.”
Storm obeyed. He had known little of Horton in the past and
nothing of how or where the years since their college days had been
passed. Without having much in common, they had traveled in the
same crowd during the first term at the university, and many had
been the scrapes, engendered by Horton’s reckless love of fun and
Storm’s rebellion against discipline, which they had shared.
Horton had been compelled to leave college at the end of the
freshman year by his father’s failure and gradually had dropped from
sight of his old classmates. In the first few years he had been heard
of now and then in widely different parts of the country, employed in
positions of minor responsibility, but of late no news had come and
Storm had forgotten him completely until this passing glimpse of his
face recalled old associations.
In the subway he studied his companion furtively. Horton’s figure
had grown heavier with the years, his face more full but healthily
tanned, while the prominent jaw and clear, steady eyes betokened
added strength of character. Storm speculated on his possible
circumstances; his clothes were of good quality but obviously ready-
made, and the bluff heartiness of his manner suggested an
association with men of a rougher caliber than Storm himself
counted among his friends. Here was a man who had mastered
circumstances, not permitted himself to be enslaved by them! Storm
wondered what the other would do in his place. At least he would
not allow penury to hold him chained to an existence which had
become unendurable! Then he dismissed the idea with a shrug.
Horton could never stand in his place; he would not have the
cleverness to cloak murder in the guise of accident, or the quick wit
and self-control to see it through. No one could have done it save
Storm himself!
When they reached his station he touched Horton lightly on the
arm to appraise him of the fact and was amazed at the latter’s quick,
defensive start. What did the man fear? His secretiveness, his
evident intention at first to deny his identity: what could they
portend? Could it be that Horton was a fugitive from justice? Storm
smiled at the thought. Why, he himself, if the world only knew——!
But Horton’s ebullient spirits bubbled over when they emerged on
the street level, and a hasty glance about assured him that no other
pedestrians were near.
“Lord, but it’s good to be in New York again, Norman!” he
exclaimed. “The old burg is the greatest little spot on God’s green
earth, let me tell you! The sight and sound and smell of it get into a
fellow’s blood. Talk about the East a-calling! It’s deaf and dumb
compared to the urge of little old Manhattan!”
“Feel that way about it?” Storm’s lips curled as he remembered
his own glowing, futile dreams of the Far East.
“You bet I do!” Horton shifted his umbrella to grasp more firmly
the small black bag which he was carrying. “Do you know, Norman,
there have been nights down in Mexico and up in Alaska and out on
the plains when I would have given five years of my life for an hour
here! Mind you, it isn’t so much the bright lights—I can’t afford, for
more reasons than one, to cut loose as I used to—but it’s what
these literary cusses call ‘atmosphere’, I guess; there’s something in
life here, any phase of it, that gets under a guy’s skin and makes
him itch to get back!”
“Mexico? Alaska?” repeated Storm with unconscious envy.
“You’ve been about a bit, Jack, haven’t you?”
“Surest thing you know!” The other laughed, adding, as Storm
halted: “This where you hang out? Oh, boy! Some class to you!”
“I took these rooms off the hands of a friend only lately,” Storm
replied, wincing in spite of himself at Horton’s uncouth appreciation.
“I have lived out of town for years.”
He opened the apartment door and switched on the lights, and
his companion gave a low whistle.
“Some class!” he repeated admiringly. “You must have made
good, Norman.”
There was an element of surprise in his tone that nettled his
host.
“I’m an official of the Mammoth Trust Company, you know,” he
said loftily. “Let me take your coat, Jack, and just put your bag down
anywhere.”
Horton allowed himself to be divested of his coat and hat, but
when he followed Storm into the living-room he was still carrying the
black bag, which he deposited on a corner of the couch, seating
himself beside it.
“Mammoth Trust, eh?” he repeated. “Your old man was a big bug
there at one time, wasn’t he? I remember you used to talk about it
in the old days; said he was going to get you an easy berth there
when you graduated. By Gad, you did fall in soft!”
Storm flushed at the imputation, although he found no words
with which to deny it. What a rough boor Jack had become! He
almost regretted that he had brought him home. Still, even he was
better than no one.
“Cocktail?” he asked suggestively.
Horton shook his head.
“I’m off the fancy stuff,” he replied. “The fact is, I’m not
supposed to be touching anything at all, but I may as well take the
lid off since we’re going to make a night of it. Got any Scotch?”
Storm produced the bottle, siphon and two tall glasses, and went
into the kitchen to crack some ice. His guest followed him to the
door after a quick backward glance at his bag.
“Great little place you’ve got here.” He glanced about him and
back at his host. Then for the first time he noted the latter’s
mourning garb, and his eyes widened. “Look here, Norman, you—
you’ve lost someone. Not your wife——?” Storm nodded.
“You don’t say! I’m confoundedly sorry, old scout!” Horton
exclaimed with real feeling. “I knew you were married, of course;
saw your wife’s picture in the society papers more than once a few
years ago. When you brought me here and I lamped it was a typical
bachelor’s diggings, I didn’t like to ask questions; divorces here are
thicker than fleas below the border, and you never can tell. When did
it happen, Norman?”
“A little over a month ago.” Storm turned to the ice chest as if to
cut off further questions or attempt at sympathy, but Horton was as
impervious to snubs as a good-natured puppy.
 “Isn’t it hell?” he soliloquized. “When a fellow’s happy, something
rotten always happens. Beautiful woman, wasn’t she? Any kids?”
“No,” replied his host shortly. “Come on, let’s have our drink and
then we’ll see what we can dig up for dinner. Homachi usually stuffs
the pantry shelves pretty well.”
The glasses were filled and Horton raised his, somewhat
uncomfortably oppressed with the lack of fitting words. Storm
forestalled him hastily.
“I don’t talk much about my trouble, Jack. Let’s try to forget it for
to-night. This is a reunion, and I’m damn glad to have you here!
Happy days!”
Horton nodded and drank deeply, drawing a long breath of
satisfaction.
“That’s the stuff!” he approved. “Some kick to it, all right! Do you
ever see anything of the old crowd?”
“I run into one or another of them at the club now and then.”
Storm put down his glass. “I’ll go and investigate the pantry; you
must be starved.”
“I could do with a little nourishment,” Horton acquiesced. “Let me
help you rustle the grub. You don’t look as if you were much of a
hand at it.”
“Are you?”
Horton laughed boisterously.
“Just watch me!” he cried. “I’ve been roughing it for years, in one
way and another; mining camps, oil leases, cattle ranches and even
a tramp steamer.”
“Really? You haven’t told me a thing about yourself yet, Jack.
The last I heard of you, you were working in a bank out in Chicago.”
“Yeah!” Horton snorted disgustedly. “Nice kid-glove-and-silk-hat
job; thirty bucks a week and a bum lung.—Say, where can I put this
bag of mine?”
“Why, leave it here.” Storm stared. “Nobody is going to walk off
with it.”
“Not if I know it, they’re not!” returned his guest with emphasis.
“I’ve got some mighty important stuff in here. Got any place where I
can lock it up? I’d feel easier in my mind——”
 “Why, of course!” Storm threw open a closet door. “Here, keep
the key yourself if it will give you any satisfaction. Now come on; I’m
hungry, myself.”
They found the pantry well stocked and made a hearty meal.
Storm, usually an abstemious drinker, poured out a second Scotch
and under its influence grew expansive. He regaled his guest with
tales of high finance, adroitly registering his own importance in the
trust company and his intimacy with men of large affairs. It was only
later when they returned again to the living-room that he became
conscious of a seeming reticence on the part of his friend.
“But tell me about yourself,” he demanded. “Will you smoke? Try
one of these.”
He offered the humidor, and Horton selected a cigar and eyed it
almost reverently.
“A fifty-center!” he exclaimed. “Gee, you’re hitting the high spots,
all right, and I don’t wonder after what you’ve been telling me! As to
myself—well, I’m no great shakes, but I’m not kicking. I’ve had a
pretty good time of it, by and large.”
“But you said something about lung trouble.” Storm lit his own
cigarette and held the match to the other’s cigar. “You certainly don’t
look it now.”
“Fact, though,” Horton nodded. “Good thing, too, or I would have
been a pasty-faced, pretty-mannered bank clerk to this day. It was a
question of living out in the open or dying in a hall room, and the
West looked good to me. I started in as paymaster in a mining
camp, and believe me it was some job for a tenderfoot who had
never been nearer to a gun than across the footlights at a
melodrama! I learned to travel heeled and be quick on the draw and
a few other things; human nature generally. It’s funny the
fascination other’s people’s money has for some folks. Never felt that
way myself; I guess that’s why I’ve usually had charge of the
payroll.”
Storm smiled bitterly, his thoughts reverting to the pseudo Du
Chainat and his own money lying now at the bottom of the sea. He
had boasted of his affluence to Horton to soothe his wounded self-
esteem at the latter’s naïve appraisement of him, but his own
predicament had returned with crushing force. Happily, Horton was
aware of no lack of response on the part of the host.
“Yes, sir!” he continued. “It’s no credit to me that I’ve run
straight, but it kind of gives a fellow a damned good feeling to know
that folks realize without question that he’s worthy of trust. Why,
right now——!” He broke off and added in a lower tone: “I’m a hell
of a fellow to pin medals on myself! I ought to be miles away this
minute and going fast. Couldn’t resist a glimpse of the old town,
though, and I reckon I can take care of myself. I thought I would
just look ’round a bit and then be on my way, but you came along
——”
“And you tried to pass me up!” Storm recalled the other’s furtive
manner. “What is the game, anyway, Jack? Where are you bound
for?”
“A jumping-off place back in the Alleghanies.” Horton grimaced.
“Some different from your berth here, isn’t it? You’ve got a nice
mahogany roll-top, I suppose, and nothing on your mind but your
hat, while I travel with my eyes peeled and my finger on the trigger.
See this?”
He reached in his hip pocket and produced a blunt-nosed pistol
which winked wickedly in the light.
“Good heavens! What do you carry that thing around with you
for?” Storm gasped.
“Looks like business, doesn’t it? Fact is, I’m pay-master now for
one of the biggest coal companies in Pennsylvania, and when you’ve
got charge of a small fortune every month and an army of Hunkies
and general riff-raff know it, it’s just as well to be on the look-out.”
He laid the weapon on the table and ground out the stub of his cigar
regretfully in the ash-tray. “That was some smoke!”
“Have another,” Storm invited. “I only smoke cigarettes myself,
but these cigars are supposed to be pretty good, I believe.”
“They are that!” his guest agreed with unction. “Lord, I don’t
know when I’ve had a feed like this, and three good hookers of
Scotch and such tobacco!” He lighted a fresh cigar and sprawled
back in his chair with a sigh of content. “This is certainly the life!”
 “There’s more Scotch——” Storm began suggestively, but Horton
shook his head.
“Not for mine, thanks. I’m at peace with the world. If it weren’t
for that bag of mine——”
“What’s in it, anyway?” Storm asked idly. “Money for your gang
out there?”
“You’ve guessed it, son.” Horton sat up suddenly. “I’ll show you
something that will make your eyes pop out, for all your big deals!
You fellows who write checks and tear off coupons don’t know what
money is; it is only when you handle the actual coin in bulk that you
realize what it stands for.”
He crossed to the closet and unlocked it while Storm watched
him, diverted in spite of himself at the other’s complacency.
“Here you are!” Horton placed the bag on the table and opened
it. “Have a look!”
Storm obeyed. Packets of yellow-backed bills, sheaves on
sheaves of them, met his gaze, and cylinders of coins. The bag was
filled to the brim with them!
“All gold!” Horton explained, pointing to the cylinders. “Some of
the Hunkies won’t take anything else. Do you know how much I’ve
got here, old scout? One hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred
and fifty-two dollars and eighty-four cents!”
 Chapter XIV.
In His Hands
In contemplation of the money Storm was stirred despite his
sang-froid. Horton’s psychology had been sound; it was one thing to
deal in figures and quite another to view the actual cash before one.
“This is some money!” He unconsciously adopted his companion’s
slang. “I don’t wonder you go heeled, as you call it, with that much
at stake!”
“I’ve handled twice as much during the war, when we were
speeding up production to the limit,” Horton boasted as he fastened
the bag and placed it on the floor at his feet. “Twice as much and
then some, and never lost a cent! I’m not taking any chances,
though; the constabulary down there do their part, and a wonderful
lot of fellows they are, but they can’t be everywhere at once. The
last guy that held my job was found in a thicket by the road with his
head bashed in. The birds that got him were caught, but a lot of
good it did him! No, sir. I take mighty good care not to land in his
shoes!”
A hundred and twelve thousand dollars! The figures themselves
held an odd fascination for Storm, and he could not keep his eyes
from straying to the bag.
“I had an experience out in Montana in the early days when I
was new to the game.” Horton settled back once more luxuriously
into his chair. “I was only carrying five thousand then, but it looked
as big as a million to me, and I don’t mind telling you that I was
plumb scared of the responsibility. I had a wild bit of road to cover
between the town and the mine, and I jumped at every shadow. We
had a rough lot out there, too; scum of the earth, even for a raw
mining camp. One night four guys that we had turned off laid for
me; they’d have done for me, too, only by sheer dumb luck I got the
drop on them first. I held ’em there, all four of ’em, till a gang of our
own men came along, but it was a narrow squeak for me! Lord, but
I was one sick hombre!”
He chuckled reminiscently, but his host did not smile. Instead, his
lips tightened and an avid gleam came into his eyes. A hundred and
twelve thousand dollars! What it would mean to him! If he had
Jack’s opportunity——!
“There was another time down in Mexico.” His guest was in the
flood tide of garrulity now, all unconscious of the train of thought his
innocent display had evoked. “A couple of greasers tried to stick me
up, but I drilled a hole in one of them, and the other beat it for the
hills. It’s tame here in the East compared to those days, but there’s
always a chance of trouble in my game.”
How ridiculously small and flimsy the black bag looked to contain
such tremendous potentialities! All that Du Chainat’s alluring
proposition had held out, and more, was there before him in the
custody of this smirking, self-assured boor! Storm felt a wave of
unaccountable hatred for the other man sweeping over him. What
right had Jack Horton to flaunt that money in his face? God, if it
were only his!
He roused himself to realize that the other was eying him in a
crestfallen fashion, disappointed that his narrative had seemed to
make no impression, and Storm collected his vagrant thoughts.
“I envy you your experiences,” he said. “The element of danger
must be exhilarating. To walk out of the station, as you did to-night,
and realize that if the very men who rubbed shoulders with you in
the street knew what was in that bag your life might not be worth
tuppence——”
“Say, look here!” Horton showed traces of alarm. “I told you in
confidence, old scout! For the love of Pete, don’t mention it! It would
mean my job if the company heard that I had been flashing the
payroll! They must never get onto it that I stopped off in town; no
one must know! You’ll keep it a secret that you met me?”
“Of course.” Storm nodded. “You don’t know how well I can keep
a secret, Jack!”
 “You’re the only living soul who knows where I am this minute!”
The other chuckled, reassured. “Not that I’ll be missed for these few
hours. The company don’t check me up on time nor keep tabs on
me; they know I’m honest, and the money is as safe in my care as
though it were still in the bank.”
“The only living soul who knows where I am!” The words rang in
Storm’s ears with the insistence of a tolling bell, and a tremendous,
sinister idea was born. Nothing stood between him and the money
there before his eyes, within reach of his hand, but this cocksure
fathead! If he could get it away from him, secretly, without the
other’s knowing——But that was impossible! The fool knew his
business too well to be tricked; he had learned it in the roughest,
wildest parts of the country, and here they were in the midst of the
crowded city, where a single outcry would bring immediate
investigation. Jack Horton would guard that bag while he lived.
While he lived!
“No one will ever learn from me that I saw you to-night,” Storm
said slowly. “You needn’t worry about that.”
Horton nodded.
“Knew I could trust you, old scout! You know, now that I’m here,
though, I’m damned if I wouldn’t like to telephone a certain party.”
He turned speculative eyes on the instrument on the desk. “She
needn’t know where the call came from; I could tell her I was in
Trenton or Scranton or Altoona, and she wouldn’t get me in a million
years. I’d kind of like to hear her voice——”
“You’re crazy!” Storm interrupted in rough haste. “This wire is
listed! Don’t you know a call can be traced? Suppose this woman,
whoever she is, thinks of something else she wants to tell you after
you have rung off, and gets Central to call you back on the wire? It
isn’t always possible for them to do it, but they have been known to.
It is nothing to me, of course, but you know how women talk; if you
want her to know that you spent the evening here in town——”
“Not on your life, I don’t!” ejaculated Horton. “She’s all right;
greatest little kid in the world, but I’m not giving anybody anything
on me; especially when I’m in charge of the company’s money.”
 Storm nodded acquiescence. No plan was as yet forming itself in
his mind, but the sinister idea was becoming a resolution. He must
have that money! Fate, after robbing him of his own, had replaced it
twofold within his grasp. If Horton would not surrender it—and that
was not worth considering—then Horton must be eliminated. He had
done it once and gotten away with it; why not again? But he must
feel his way carefully, he must learn just where Horton stood, what
his ties were. He must know from what quarter to expect inquiries if
—he tried to say it to himself calmly, but his senses reeled at the
immensity of it—if Horton disappeared.
“But you haven’t told me anything about yourself, Jack; only
about your work. You’re not married, I suppose?”
“Not me!” the other laughed, then amended: “At least, not yet.
I’ve looked ’em all over, from Tampico to Nome and from ’Frisco to
Boston, but I haven’t seen one yet that I’d tie up to for keeps;
except maybe this little dame I wanted to talk to just now. Prettiest
little thing you ever saw in your life, Norman, and got a lot of horse
sense besides. Want to see the picture?”
He pulled out his watch, snapped the case open and extended it
across the table.
The face in the little photograph was undeniably pretty, but the
style of coiffure was over-elaborate, and even to Storm’s untrained
masculine eye the gown seemed cheaply ornate; not the sort of
thing that Leila or any of her set would have worn.
“Who is she?” he asked; then correcting himself hastily, “I mean,
where does she come from? She is mighty pretty,” he added as he
snapped the watch shut and handed it back.
“You’ve guessed it; she’s no New Yorker; comes from
Pennsylvania, out Bethlehem way. Her daddy made a pot of money
in steel during the war, and she’s on here trying to catch up with the
procession. She’ll do it, too, with the old man’s cash and her looks.”
Horton grinned fatuously. “She’s strong for your Uncle Jack, all
right.”
What an ass he looked, blithering there about a girl while at his
feet lay the price of his life! But Storm must know more.
 “Then I suppose congratulations are in order?” he queried, eying
his guest through narrowed lids.
“Not yet. I don’t mean to brag, but I have an idea they will be as
soon as I make up my mind to say the word.” He paused to lay his
cigar stub with the others in the tray, and Storm’s eyes followed the
motion as if fascinated. The mounting heap of pale gray ashes
reminded him suddenly of certain ashes which he had scattered in a
garden at midnight a month before. They were so like them, light
and flakey, tossed by a light wind, gone forever at the twist of an
arm! How easily that had been accomplished! Not only the
destruction of the handkerchief, but of all other clues! How easily he
had outwitted them all, and then he had been a mere amateur and
handicapped by the fact that the blow had been unpremeditated;
when he started to build up the circumstantial evidence of accident
he had been compelled to make what use he could of conditions as
they lay. Sinister but intoxicating reflections came to him. He had
succeeded then; could he fail now when the opportunity was his to
prepare beforehand each step of the way?
“How about your family, Jack? I haven’t heard, you know, since I
lost track of you.” He must keep the conversation going somehow
until he formed a plan.
“Haven’t any.” Horton shrugged. “My dad died right after his
failure—you knew that?—and mother went in two years, while my
kid brother was killed in France. There’s no one left except an uncle
in Omaha, and I cut loose from him years ago. It’s too bad mother
didn’t live; she’d have liked ’Genie.”
“’Genie?”
“Old man Saulsbury’s daughter; girl in the watch. Her own
mother is dead, and she’s staying here on Madison Avenue with
some old widow who is long on the family tree business and short
on cash. She’s going to fit ’Genie out properly and put her through
her paces.”
“You may lose her if she gets into the social game,” Storm
remarked absently, his mind intent on his problem. On one thing he
was determined; Horton should not leave that door with the money!
Yet to kill him here was unthinkable. A phrase which the other had
used in telling of his predecessor’s fate returned to Storm like a flash
of inspiration: “found in a thicket by the road with his head bashed
in”——The Drive! Later it would be deserted enough; but how to get
Horton out there——?
“Lose ’Genie?” Horton repeated. “Not a chance! There’s no
nonsense about her, I can tell you! She is only doing this to please
her daddy, but she’ll never get stung by the society bug. I knew her
before the old man made his pile, and it hasn’t changed her a mite.
She’d stick to me through thick and thin, but when a fellow has led
the free life I have, he isn’t in too much of a hurry to settle down in
double harness, even if it is silver mounted.”
“There is no one else?” Storm regarded him quizzically. “For you,
I mean? No other girl in the running?”
“No, sir! I never bothered much with them, anyway; been too
busy. This Mid-Eastern Consolidated Coal Corporation is the biggest
job I’ve had yet, and I’m planning to stick right with them and go on
up. They know me, and once I get on the inside——!” Horton
paused and reached for the humidor. “I’m eating up your cigars, old
scout! Look at that pile of ashes.”
“Help yourself.” Storm tossed the match box across the table.
“That’s what they’re here for. Damn the ashes.”
“Well, it’s my last.” Horton glanced at his watch. “Great Scott!
Eleven thirty! I ought to be changing at Altoona right now for a little
jerkwater road up into the mountains!—Oh, what’s the odds! It’s
been worth it, this powwow with you, Norman. I’ll catch the twelve-
forty——”
“Why? I thought you were going to stay over night!” stammered
his host, aghast at this sudden hitch in his half-formulated plan. “I’m
all alone here, as you see, and we can turn in any time you feel like
it.”
“I—I oughtn’t to!” Horton hesitated, and Storm seized upon his
opportunity.
“You’re safer here with that bag than you would be traveling at
night. You can get a train at almost any hour in the morning, and
you said they didn’t check up on your time.” He paused, and as the
other still visibly wavered he added persuasively: “Tell you what I’ll
do, Jack. I’ve got some business to attend to in Philadelphia that
would require my presence there in a day or two, anyway; if you’ll
wait over I’ll go part of the way with you to-morrow. It isn’t often
that two chaps who were such good pals at college meet after so
many years, and we have a lot to talk over yet.”
“That’s so,” Horton agreed. “A few hours more or less won’t make
any difference, I guess, and I’ll be mighty glad to have your
company part of the way in the morning. I’m not due back until late
in the afternoon; got through my business to-day ahead of time.
That’s how I came to think of stopping off for a look at the old
town.”
“It would make trouble if you weren’t there to-morrow, though?”
Storm asked slowly. “I mean, if you should stay over with me——?”
“Trouble? Say!” Horton leaned forward impressively. “If I weren’t
there by six o’clock to-morrow night every wire in the east would be
hot from efforts to locate me. I’m not so precious to them, but their
little old hundred thousand odd—wow!”
He flickered the ashes from his cigar, and a few flakes missed the
tray and fell on the shining surface of the table top. Storm watched
them settle, just as those other ashes must have settled among the
flowers . . . God, why did he have to think of that now? ‘In a thicket
with his head bashed in’! There was a spot up the Drive past the
viaduct where the path turned sharply, and on the other side of the
low wall was a sheer drop of fifty feet or more with stout bushes
clinging to it all the way down. A living man could grab them and
save himself, perhaps, but a dead body, hurtled over the wall——
“You’ll get there, all right.” Storm forced himself to speak
casually. “You’re traveling light, but I can make you comfortable for
the night——”
“Comfortable?” Horton spread his legs out luxuriously. “I’m so
darned comfortable right now that I wouldn’t change places with a
king! Lord, but it’s like old times to see you again, Norman! Twenty
years is a long stretch, but it seems only yesterday that we sat
smoking together in your old rooms, and usually planning some
devilment, too! Remember the love letters on pink paper that we
sent to the old chemistry prof.—what was his name? Oh, yes,
Peebles. Gad, we kept them up for weeks until he was afraid to look
even the president’s old maid sister in the face!”
He chuckled reminiscently, and Storm’s lips twisted in a smile.
‘Head bashed in!’ How could he do it? What sort of weapon——?
From where he sat he could look over his guest’s shoulder into the
hall, and the umbrella stand was in a direct line of vision. Potter had
been rather a connoisseur of canes, and among those he had left
behind him in his hurried departure was a curious one with a loaded
head. A tap with it would crack a skull like an egg-shell! But not if
that skull were covered by a thick, soft felt hat, such as Horton wore
when they met. If he could contrive to make him put on an old golf
cap, on some pretext; could get him up the Drive to that lonely spot
where the wall sheered down, he would have but to strike once and
the bag and its precious contents would be his! He listened. Had the
rain stopped? It was no longer beating against the window. He must
make an excuse to look out and see.
“We certainly pulled off a few stunts in the old days!” he
observed. “Don’t you think it’s a bit stuffy in here? Let’s get some of
the smoke out.”
He rose and strolled to the window, trembling with inward
excitement, but forcing himself to walk slowly, casually. He raised
the window. The pavement was still wet and glistening, but
overhead the stars winked down at him.
“Hello, it’s clearing off!” he announced “We might have a stroll
later, before we turn in.”
“What for?” Horton asked unenthusiastically. “I’ve been on the
jump all day. It is good enough for me right here.”
“Then what do you say to a little drink?” Storm heard the
footsteps of a lone pedestrian approaching, and hurriedly closing the
window, pulled down the shade. Horton was seated where the light
played strongly on his face, and he would be plainly visible from the
street. A passer-by glancing in would think nothing strange about
seeing a man sitting quietly smoking there, but he might chance to
remember the face; he might recall it later when a hue and cry was
raised and pictures were printed in the newspapers. . . . “As long as
you’re staying on here with me to-night another little nip or two
won’t do you any harm. This is an occasion, you know!”
Rigidly as he held himself in control, there was a note of
suppressed eagerness in his tone which the unsuspicious Horton
misread.
“On with the dance!” he cried gaily. “I’m with you, old scout! Just
one, though; got to have a clear head in the morning. Booze is a
good thing to let alone in my business, but I know when I’ve had
enough. Do you remember the time we got pickled in Dutch Jake’s,
and you wanted to go and serenade the whole faculty?”
While he chattered on serenely Storm moved in and out bringing
glasses, ice and a fresh siphon. He mixed as stiff a drink as he dared
for his guest, a light one for himself, and raised his glass.
“To ourselves!” he exclaimed with a reckless laugh. “That’s the
best toast in the world, Jack, and the most honest one. To us!”
“And our next meeting.” Horton drank, nor noticed that his host
set his glass down untasted while a faint shudder swept over him.
“Phew! but that’s a strong one! I need a little more fizz in that, old
scout.” He reached for the siphon. “Say, what wouldn’t I give if we
could all be together again, just once; the old crowd, I mean! There
was Van Tries and Caldwell and Holworthy and Swain and McKnight.
I wonder what has become of them all!”
“Holworthy is here in town; I run into him now and then.” Storm
raised his glass slowly, watching the hand that held it. Steady as a
die!
“That so?” Horton looked up, interested. “What is his line?”
“Real estate. He’s the same old plodding George, except that he
is getting fat. McKnight died in the prison camp at Rastatt and Swain
went under in Wall Street and blew the top of his head off.”
Horton’s ruddy face sobered.
“That makes three of the old crowd gone, for Caldwell was killed
in a motor smash-up,” he said. “I remember reading about it in the
papers. All violent deaths, too! Well, maybe we’re none of us fated
to die in our own beds.”
Storm started nervously and glanced at him. Was there
something prophetic in Horton’s speech? Then he shook himself