“I have decided to hire you to run my power plant on Broken Heart Key. O’Shanigan told me all about you over the phone. I hope you are not a fool. I think you are, or you would have money—and you would sit down in the chair behind you. That’s better. I don’t want to hear anything more about you. It would bore me—so please listen to what I have to say. Sam will give you a letter of instructions on your way out. There will be sufficient money in it I hope you are not a hog. You will have to live in the house with us. Please go now.” He touched a button on the table beside him. Donald rose and started from the room as Sam opened the door. Aaron raised his good hand, and Donald paused.
“Perhaps O’Shanigan told you that many people desire my death,” Aaron said. “If he did—don’t let it worry you. I’m ready to die and don’t want protection. If they decide to kill me you can’t stop them, anyhow. They are far more clever than you, and I am far more clever than they. What you must remember is this: if you damage my power plant, I will have you arrested!”
Chapter II
The Tuckerton family had received far more than their share of publicity. As Donald stood in the rain waiting for a bus to take him downtown, he ran over in his mind the few outstanding facts he remembered about them from the papers.
Close mouthed and taciturn, unfriendly and bitter toward the press, Aaron’s millions never spared him from being pilloried by the reporters on the flimsiest of pretexts. He had been good newspaper copy before Donald Buchanan was born. Married twice, he had divorced his first wife on grounds of infidelity, and had secured custody of their daughter, Cornelia. Cornelia’s mother had vainly tried to get her daughter out of Aaron’s hands, but had finally admitted defeat, and dropped out of sight, and out of the news. That was many years previous to the night Donald interviewed the millionaire.
Cornelia, now a spinster about forty years old, lived with Aaron in the house Donald had just left. She was a writer of some ability, and her cold patrician features were to be seen in the Sunday supplements with monotonous regularity. The escapades of her half-brother, Beverly Tuckerton, more nearly paralleled Donald’s own time. They were called “escapades” in deference to the wealth of the family. At least two, which were common gossip in Donald’s fraternity house in Boston, would have landed the son of a less powerful man in jail.
Beverly was Aaron’s son by the second Mrs. Tuckerton, who, rumor had it, had drunk herself to death when Beverly was twenty years old—twenty years of Cornelia, Beverly, and Aaron being more than human flesh could stand. Donald was to see enough of Beverly’s viciousness on Broken Heart Key to make him believe the rumor might be true.
“To put it mildly, Old Son,” Donald addressed an approaching bus, “you may have secured yourself a winter in Florida, but let’s hope you won’t wish you were back in Bryant Park before it’s over!”
On the bus, he opened the letter Sam had handed him as he left the house. His heart thrilled as he fingered the ten crisp twenty dollar bills it contained. Whatever might be said about the eccentricity of Aaron Tuckerton, it proved a life-saver for Donald Buchanan. His long unfulfilled dream about a thick steak with potatoes au gratin was about to become a reality.
The letter was short and to the point:
Mr. Donald Buchanan
You will leave New York on the 10:05 train, Sunday night, December 30th for Key West, Florida. You will present this letter to Charlie Means, on the cruiser Alamo. He will show you your quarters on Broken Heart Key.
You will need clothes. I have arranged with Mr. North, at Bennett Brothers & Kyle, on Madison Avenue, to outfit you tomorrow.
I will arrive at the key shortly after you do. I expect to find the power plant in perfect condition.
Aaron Tuckerton
There was no mention of salary, nothing about references. It was Donald’s first taste of the mighty egotism of the whole Tuckerton clan. He was to find that all their household retainers had been employed in much the same way, a gesture evidently designed to show an utter disregard for money in small things. When he spoke to Aaron about it on Broken Heart Key, the great man was quite annoyed. “Did I argue about your pay?” he demanded. “What are you worth?” Donald had given the matter some thought, and hesitantly asked for fifty dollars per week. “I’m paying you seventy-five,” Aaron said nastily. “You admit that’s twenty-five more than you are worth. Try to earn it.” Donald let the matter rest there.
It was a prosperous looking Donald Buchanan who boarded the Key West sleeper Sunday evening. Mr. North, at Bennett Brothers, had taken him in hand as soon as he entered the store. Mr. North had talked with Mr. Tuckerton, and his orders were specific. Donald left the luxurious establishment feeling that he had been equipped in much the same manner as a new house for which Aaron would order interior decorations.
There was no philanthropy connected with any of Aaron Tuckerton’s actions. It was necessary, for the smooth running of the winter home, that an engineer be present. If his clothes were incongruous, it would prove an annoyance to the family. Donald’s personal choice, in design,
