The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

“Couldn’t you get somethin’ over there?” inquired Mrs. Butler.

“Besides, you’ve got two or three weeks here yet.”

“They wouldn’t want a man around as a sort of guide and adviser, would they, mother?” put in Callum.

“I might offer my services in that capacity myself,” observed Owen, reservedly.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” returned Mrs. Butler, smiling, and at the same time chewing a lusty mouthful. “You’ll have to ast ‘em, my sons.”

Aileen still persisted. She did not want to go. It was too sudden.

It was this. It was that. Just then old Butler came in and took his seat at the head of the table. Knowing all about it, he was most anxious to appear not to.

“You wouldn’t object, Edward, would you?” queried his wife, explaining the proposition in general.

“Object!” he echoed, with a well simulated but rough attempt at gayety. “A fine thing I’d be doing for meself—objectin’. I’d be glad if I could get shut of the whole pack of ye for a time.”

“What talk ye have!” said his wife. “A fine mess you’d make of it livin’ alone.”

“I’d not be alone, belave me,” replied Butler. “There’s many a place I’d be welcome in this town—no thanks to ye.”

“And there’s many a place ye wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been for me. I’m tellin’ ye that,” retorted Mrs. Butler, genially.

“And that’s not stretchin’ the troot much, aither,” he answered, fondly.

Aileen was adamant. No amount of argument both on the part of Norah and her mother had any effect whatever. Butler witnessed the failure of his plan with considerable dissatisfaction, but he was not through. When he was finally convinced that there was no hope of persuading her to accept the Mollenhauer proposition, he decided, after a while, to employ a detective.

At that time, the reputation of William A. Pinkerton, of detective fame, and of his agency was great. The man had come up from poverty through a series of vicissitudes to a high standing in his peculiar and, to many, distasteful profession; but to any one in need of such in themselves calamitous services, his very famous and decidedly patriotic connection with the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln was a recommendation. He, or rather his service, had guarded the latter all his stormy incumbency at the executive mansion. There were offices for the management of the company’s business in Philadelphia, Washington, and New York, to say nothing of other places. Butler was familiar with the Philadelphia sign, but did not care to go to the office there. He decided, once his mind was made up on this score, that he would go over to New York, where he was told the principal offices were.

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, where there was a perfect swirl of omnibuses and vehicles of all sorts. Mr. Martinson quietly closed the door.

“Now then, if there’s anything I can do for you,” Mr. Martinson paused. He thought by this little trick to elicit Buder’s real name—it often “worked”— but in this instance the name was not forthcoming. Butler was too shrewd.

“I’m not so sure that I want to go into this,” said the old man solemnly. “Certainly not if there’s any risk of the thing not being handled in the right way. There’s somethin’ I want to find out about—somethin’ that I ought to know; but it’s a very private matter with me, and—” He paused to think and conjecture, looking at Mr. Martinson the while. The latter understood his peculiar state of mind. He had seen many such cases.

“Let me say right here, to begin with, Mr.—”

“Scanlon,” interpolated Butler, easily; “that’s as good a name as any if you want to use one. I’m keepin’ me own to meself for the present.”

“Scanlon,” continued Martinson, easily. “I really don’t care whether it’s your right name or not. I was just going to say that it might not be necessary to have your right name under any circumstances—

it all depends upon what you want to know. But, so far as your private affairs are concerned, they are as safe with us, as if you had never told them to any one. Our business is built upon confidence, and we never betray it. We wouldn’t dare. We have men and women who have been in our employ for over thirty years, and we never retire any one except for cause, and we don’t pick people who are likely to need to be retired for cause. Mr. Pinkerton is a good judge of men. There are others here who consider that they are.

We handle over ten thousand separate cases in all parts of the United States every year. We work on a case only so long as we are wanted. We try to find out only such things as our customers want. We do not pry unnecessarily into anybody’s affairs. If we decide that we cannot find out what you want to know, we are the first to say so. Many cases are rejected right here in this office before we ever begin. Yours might be such a one. We don’t want cases merely for the sake of having them, and we are frank to say so. Some matters that involve public policy, or some form of small persecution, we don’t touch at all—we won’t be a party to them.

You can see how that is. You look to me to be a man of the world.

I hope I am one. Does it strike you that an organization like ours would be likely to betray any one’s confidence?” He paused and looked at Butler for confirmation of what he had just said.

“It wouldn’t seem likely,” said the latter; “that’s the truth.

It’s not aisy to bring your private affairs into the light of day, though,” added the old man, sadly.

They both rested.

“Well,” said Butler, finally, “you look to me to be all right, and I’d like some advice. Mind ye, I’m willing to pay for it well enough; and it isn’t anything that’ll be very hard to find out. I want to know whether a certain man where I live is goin’ with a certain woman, and where. You could find that out aisy enough, I belave—couldn’t you?”