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There was a banquet, not quite in Delmonico's style, nor quite so fine as those at the Hasheesh; but still it was a grand affair to the dilapidated wrecks that Charley gathered about him. Charley was president, and Vail's portrait hung over the mantelpiece, with this inscription beneath, "The Founder of the Club." Most of Charley's fine paintings were here, and the rooms were indeed brilliant.
"You recognize the person to whom Sir Charles referred?" "Yes. He could only have meant Ormuz Khan." "Ormuz Khan " echoed Harley. "Where have I heard that name?" "He visits England periodically, I believe. In fact, he has a house somewhere near London. I met him at Lady Vail's." "Lady Vail's? His excellency moves, then, in diplomatic circles? Odd that I cannot place him."
I went into the main cabin, now bright with the morning sun, which streamed down the forward companionway. The door to Vail's room across was open, and Williams, working in nervous haste, was putting it in order. Walking up and down, his shrewd eyes keenly alert, Charlie Jones was on guard, revolver in hand. He came over to me at once.
He organized a company of well-known Rhode Islanders nicknamed the "Governors' Company" and built the line. It was a failure at first, and went by the name of "Vail's Folly." At once the Bell Company came over to Vail's point of view, bought his new line, and launched out upon what seemed to be the foolhardy enterprise of stringing a double wire from Boston to New York.
She glanced at the stain, and looked away again quickly. "I think I shall not come in. Will you look at the bell register for me? What bell is registered?" "Three." "Three!" she said. "Are you sure?" I looked again. "It is three." "Then it was not my sister's bell that rang. It was Mr. Vail's!" "It must be a mistake. Perhaps the wires " "Mrs. Turner's room is number one.
"I heard a yell a minute ago. Turner on the rampage?" He saw my revolver then, and, letting go the wheel, threw up both his hands. "Turn that gun away, you fool!" I could hardly speak. I lowered the revolver and gasped: "Call the captain! Vail's been murdered! "Good God!" he said. "Who did it?" He had taken the wheel again, and was bringing the ship back to her course.
"Well, I'm not Old Scrooge, anyhow, if I'm not as good as poor Henry Vail." I do not know whether it was the reaction from the punch he had drunk, or the sudden shock of Vail's death, or the troubled conscience, or from all three, but when he got into bed he found himself shaking with nervousness.
He persuaded half a dozen of his post office friends to buy stock, so that in less than two months the first "Bell Telephone Company" was organized, with $450,000 capital and a service of twelve thousand telephones. Vail's first step, naturally, was to stiffen up the backbone of this little company, and to prevent the Western Union from frightening it into a surrender.
Vail's rooms were. "The blissed man as wint about like a saint? Shore and I can," said the boozy Irishman. "It's right ferninst where yer afther stan'in, up the stairs on the corner of Granefield Coort over there, bedad." Seeing a light in the rooms indicated by the man, Charley crossed over, passed through a sorrowful-looking crowd at the door, and went up the stairs.
But the next moment she was talking again quietly. Ten minutes fifteen passed. I grew restless and took to wandering about the cabin. Mrs. Johns came to the door opposite, and asked to have tea sent down to the stewardess. I called the request up the companionway, unwilling to leave the cabin for a moment. When I came back, Jones was standing at the door of Vail's cabin, looking in.