Full Text Archive

Full Text Archive
https://www.fulltextarchive.com
He made the simple excuse one day of business, which was common enough in his case, and
journeyed to New York--nearly five hours away as the trains ran then--arriving at two o'clock. At
the offices on lower Broadway, he asked to see the manager, whom he found to be a large,
gross-featured, heavy-bodied man of fifty, gray-eyed, gray-haired, puffily outlined as to
countenance, but keen and shrewd, and with short, fat-fingered hands, which drummed idly on
his desk as he talked. He was dressed in a suit of dark-brown wool cloth, which struck Butler as
peculiarly showy, and wore a large horseshoe diamond pin. The old man himself invariably wore
conservative gray.
"How do you do?" said Butler, when a boy ushered him into the presence of this worthy, whose
name was Martinson--Gilbert Martinson, of American and Irish extraction. The latter nodded and
looked at Butler shrewdly, recognizing him at once as a man of force and probably of position.
He therefore rose and offered him a chair.
"Sit down," he said, studying the old Irishman from under thick, bushy eyebrows. "What can I do
for you?"
"You're the manager, are you?" asked Butler, solemnly, eyeing the man with a shrewd, inquiring
eye.
"Yes, sir," replied Martinson, simply. "That's my position here."
"This Mr. Pinkerton that runs this agency--he wouldn't be about this place, now, would he?"
asked Butler, carefully. "I'd like to talk to him personally, if I might, meaning no offense to you."
"Mr. Pinkerton is in Chicago at present," replied Mr. Martinson. "I don't expect him back for a
week or ten days. You can talk to me, though, with the same confidence that you could to him.
I'm the responsible head here. However, you're the best judge of that."
Butler debated with himself in silence for a few moments, estimating the man before him. "Are
you a family man yourself?" he asked, oddly.
"Yes, sir, I'm married," replied Martinson, solemnly. "I have a wife and two children."
Martinson, from long experience conceived that this must be a matter of family misconduct--a
son, daughter, wife. Such cases were not infrequent.
"I thought I would like to talk to Mr. Pinkerton himself, but if you're the responsible head--" Butler
paused.
"I am," replied Martinson. "You can talk to me with the same freedom that you could to Mr.
Pinkerton. Won't you come into my private office? We can talk more at ease in there."
He led the way into an adjoining room which had two windows looking down into Broadway; an
oblong table, heavy, brown, smoothly polished; four leather-backed chairs; and some pictures of
the Civil War battles in which the North had been victorious. Butler followed doubtfully. He hated
very much to take any one into his confidence in regard to Aileen. He was not sure that he
would, even now. He wanted to "look these fellys over," as he said in his mind. He would decide
then what he wanted to do. He went to one of the windows and looked down into the street,
175 / 312

---