Gildersleeve’s eyes trailed after Slack’s retreating figure in a fixed, hard glitter. “When Ananias quit the job, he never dreamed he would have so illustrious a successor,” he commented grimly. “Slack’s one grand qualification for the presidency of the North Star is his magnificent ability as an unmitigated liar.”
The meal progressed in comparative silence. It was after they had retired to the privacy of a side room that Hammond, prompted by curiosity he had until now curbed, asked casually: “By the way, Mr. Winch, what became of the camp preacher you bailed out this afternoon—the Rev. Nathan Stubbs?”
Winch looked at Gildersleeve and they both smiled cynically. “He has disappeared—vanished in thin air, as you might say,” enlightened Winch.
“It was cheap to lose him at any price,” spoke up Gildersleeve with a frown. “He was through with his job—and damned good riddance!”
Hammond began to see the drift of things. “So the preacher was a detective in your employ?” he surmised.
“Exactly—and you were sent out there as a foil to keep them guessing,” replied Gildersleeve. “He went in the disguise of preacher because it was the easiest rôle to get away with without suspicion, every sort of preacher being allowed the run of the camps on account of some eccentric whim of the superintendent.”
“And your disappearance was—also a blind?”
“You’ve got the idea. I told Slack just now I was on a hunting trip, which was true—except that I was hunting inside information, not moose. To make absolutely sure of no leaks, Winch here was the only one in the plot with me. The arrest of the bogus preacher might have been a costly blunder if we hadn’t got him out before his identity was discovered.”
“How did they get the charge of vagrancy against him?”
“The Lord only knows. Smith and the gang of crooks who use him as a crafty, unscrupulous tool in their nefarious enterprises seem to have even the police of the country in their power. At any rate, Stubbs was arrested on a nominal charge of vagrancy, but ostensibly for some unnamed crime he was supposed to have committed on the limits.
“Now, Mr. Hammond,” continued the head of the International Investment Corporation, “I think I’d better be a little more explicit about matters before I come to a new proposal I have to make to you. You are fairly well acquainted with the facts in connection with the previous struggle with the Kam City Pulp and Paper Mills Company, of which my corporation is the parent, and the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, are you not?—how we succeeded in getting the rights on the limits this October, pending the opening of our mill?”