Omaha daily bee., 1919-06-22
THE WOMAN IN BLACK
By.E DMUND CLER1HEW BENTLEY

little, circle knew that Henderson,
the pillar of sound business and
stability in the markets, had his
hours of nostalgia for the lively
times when the Street had>trembled
at his name. 1t was, said one of
them, as if Blackboard had settled
down as decent merchant in Bris-
toll on the spoils of the Main. Now
and then the pirate would glare sud-
denly out, the knife in his teeth and
the sulphur matches suffering in
his hat band. During such spasms
of the reversion to type a score of
tempestuous raids upon the market
had been planned on paper in the
inner room of the offices of Man
derson, Colefax and company. But
they were never carried out. Black
beard would quell the mutiny of his
old self within him and go soberly
down to his counting house-hum-
ming a stave or two of Spanish
Ladies" perhaps, under his breath.
Henderson would allow himself the
harmless satisfaction, as soon as the
time for action had gone by, of
pointing out to some Rupert of the
markets how coup worth million
to the depredator might have been
made. Seems to me- he would
say almost wistfully, "the Street is
getting to be mighty dull place
since | quit" By slow degrees this
amiable weakness of the Colossus
became known to the business
world, which exalted greatly in the
knowledge.
At the news of his death, panic
went through the markets like a
hurricane; for it came at luckless
time. Prices 'tottered and crashed
like towers in an earthquake. For
two days Wall street was a clamor-
Gus inferno of pale despair. All over
the United States, wherever specu-
lation had its devotees, went a watt
of ruin, plague of suicide. In
Europe also not a few took with
their own hands lives that had be-
come ,pitiably linked to the destiny
of financier whom most of them
had never seen. In Paris a we'll
known banker walked quietly out
of the Bourse and fell dead upon
the broad steps among the raving
crowd of Jews, phial crushed in
his hand. In Frankfort one leaped
from the cathedral top, leaving
redder stain when he struck the red
tower. Men stabbed and shot and
strangled themselves, drank death
or breathed it as the air, because in
a lonely corner of England the life
had departed from one cold heart
vowed to the service of greed.
The blow could not have fallen
at more disastrous moment. 1t
came when Wall street was in con-
dltion of suppressed Scare" Sup
pressed: because for a week past the
great interests known to act with or
to be actually controlled by the Co.
lossus had been desperately combat
ing the effects of the sudden arrest
of Lucas Hahn. and the exposure
of his plundering of the Hahn
banks. This bombshell in its turn,
had fallen at time when the market
had been boosted" beyond its real
strength. In the language of the
place, a slump was due. Reports
from the cornlands had not been.
good, and there had been two or
three railway statements which had
been expected to be much better
than they were. But at whatever
point of the vast area of speculation
the shudder of the threatened break
had been felt, "the Henderson
crowd" had stepped in and held the
market up. All through the week
the SPECTATORS mind, as shallow as
it is quick-witted, as sentimental as
greedy, had seen in this the hand
OF the giant stretched out in pro-
lection from afar. Henderson, said
the newspapers in chorus, was in
hourly communication with his ieu-
tenants in the Street. One Journal
was able to give, in round figures,
the sum spent on cabling between
New York and Marlstone in the past
"a hours; it told how a small staff
OF expert operators had been sent
down by the postoffice authorities
to MAIDSTONE to deal with the flood
Of messages. Another revealed that
Henderson, on the first news of the
Hahn crash, had arranged to aban-
don his holiday and return home
by the Lusitania: but that he soon
had the situation so we'll in hand
that he had determined to remain
where he was.
All this was falsehood, more or
less consciously elaborated by the
finance editors" consciously in
ltiated and encouraged by the
shrewd business men of the Mander-
son group, who knew that nothing
could better help their plans than
ti1is illusion of hero-worship-knew
also that no word had come from
Henderson in answer to their mes
sages, and that Howard B. Jeffrey,
of steel and iron fame, was the true
organizer of victory. So they
fought down apprehension through
four feverish days, and minds grew
calmer. On Saturday. though the
ground beneath the feet of Mr.. JEFF
frey yet~rumbled now and then with
Aetna mutterings of disquiet, he
deemed his task almost done. The
market was firm and slowing adj
vancing. Wall street turned TO its
sleep of Sunday, worn out but thank
fully at peace.
In the first trading hours of Mon
day hideous rumor flew around the
90 acres of the financial district. 1t
came into being as the lightning
i .,-.,H :