But how did spying for the Wrecker jibe with his presidential aspirations? Or was he encouraging Preston Whiteway to launch the campaign merely to provide a smoke screen? Had Charles Kincaid surrendered political dreams to concentrate on accumulating an immense fortune in bribes? Or, as Bell’s father suggested, was he so arrogant as to believe he could get away with both?
EBENEZER BELL’S DEFINITION OF “beating the bushes” was broad and enterprising. The president of the American States Bank had started out querying trusted friends and associates in Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., by telephone, telegraph, and private messenger. Learning what he could through lofty connections, he then delved deep into the middle of the country, paying particular attention to St. Louis, home of the burned-out Union Pier & Caisson Company. In the West, information he gathered canvassing the top bankers of San Francisco, Denver, and Portland led him to call in favors from smaller banks in California and Oregon.
A request from the patrician Boston banker prompted a private meeting in Eureka, a deepwater port serving the redwood timber industry two hundred twenty-five miles north of San Francisco. Stanley Perrone, the rough-and-ready president of the Northwest Coast Bank of Eureka, dropped by the office of up-and-coming lumberman A. J. Gottfried. Gottfried had borrowed heavily from Perrone’s bank to modernize the Humboldt Bay Lumber Company. His office overlooked his timber pier, which jutted into the rain-lashed harbor.
Gottfried pulled a bottle of good bourbon from his desk, and the men sipped whiskey for a while, chatting about the weather. That it was turning from awful to worse could be predicted by the sight of a red steam launch chugging purposefully between the moored and anchored lumber schooners.
“Son of a gun. Looks like we’re getting hit again.”
The red launch was piloted by the special messenger from the U.S. Weather Bureau who delivered forecasts of violent storms to the captains of vessels in the harbor.
The banker got down to business. “As I recall, A J., you bought Humboldt Bay Lumber with the proceeds of the sale of your timber operation in eastern Oregon.”
The lumberman, intending to make hay out of this unexpected visit from his banker, answered, “That’s exactly how it happened. Though I recall that you made it easier by promising to help me replace the old equipment.”
“A.J., who bought your East Oregon Lumber Company?”
“A feller with more money than sense,” Gottfried admitted cheerfully. “I had despaired of ever unloading it ‘til he came along. It was just too expensive to snake the timber down off those mountains. Not like here, where I can load lumber schooners right at my own wharf. Provided, of course, the ship don’t founder trying to get into the harbor.”
Perrone nodded impatiently. Everyone knew that the entrance into Humboldt Bay deserved its title “Graveyard of the Pacific.” Pea-soup fog, pounding breakers that dissolved into spindrift, and a thick haze of smoke from the lumber mills made finding the channel an exercise that turned sea captains’ hair white. “I understand,” he said pointedly, “you’re considering adding a sash and door factory to your business.”
“If I can raise the means,” Gottfried answered, hoping he had heard right. “This Panic isn’t making it any easier to borrow money.”
The banker looked the lumberman in the eye, and said, “I suspect that favored borrowers will get a sympathetic ear despite the Panic. Who bought your East Oregon business?”
“Can’t tell you everything about him. As you can imagine, I wasn’t looking that particular gift horse in the mouth. Soon as we shook on the deal, I was gone from that place so fast you could hear me whiz.”
He drained his glass and poured another, and topped off the banker’s glass, which hadn’t gone down as far.
“What do you know about the purchaser of the East Oregon Lumber Company?” Perrone pressed.
“For one thing, he had plenty of cash.”
“Where’d he draw his check from?”
“Well, that was interesting. I would have thought San Francisco or Portland. But his check was on a New York bank. I was a little suspicious, but it cleared lickety-split.”
“Was the fellow from New York?”
“Might’ve been. Sure didn’t know much about the lumber business. Now that you mention it, it occurs to me he was buying it for somebody else.”
The banker nodded, encouraging the lumberman to continue talking. Ebenezer Bell had made it clear that he didn’t expect the whole story from any one source. But every bit helped. And the powerful American States president had also made it clear that he would be grateful for every nugget Perrone could wire him.
45
THE VAN DORN EXPRESS PAUSED IN DENVER’S UNION DEPOT just long enough for a Van Dorn agent in bowler hat and checkerboard suit to swagger aboard bearing fresh reports from London and Berlin. “Howdy, Isaac. Long time no see.”
“Sit there, Roscoe. Go through these Schane and Simon Company records with a fine-tooth comb. Have your queries ready to wire at the next stop.”
A lawyer who connected in Salt Lake City brought more on Schane & Simon. The foundation of the German bank’s power was an investment network that backed modernization projects throughout the Ottoman Empire. But as far back as the nineties, they had begun doing business in North and South America.
The Van Dorn Express was racing across the Great Salt Desert when Roscoe, who had boarded in Denver, hit pay dirt in the heaps of cablegrams about Schane & Simon.
“Isaac! Who’s Erastus Charney?”
“Railroad attorney. Got rich on Southern Pacific stock. Seemed to know more than he should about when to buy and when to sell.”
“Well, he sure as heck sold something to
