minutes later his car was sweeping westward through the Park like
the shadow of some flying bird. The vagueness, the brevity of the
message that had come to him out of the night made it terribly
alarming. Hammon of all men! And at this time! Merkle's mind
leaped to the consequences of the catastrophe, if catastrophe it
proved. He remembered the issues raised by the sudden death of
another associate--also a man of standing and the head of a great
industrial combination--and the avalanche of misfortune that it
had started. In that case death had been attributed to apoplexy,
but when the truth leaked out it had created a terrible scandal.
Fortunately, that man's business affairs had been well ordered,
and, although his family had been ruined, his institutions had
managed to survive the blow. But Jarvis Hammon's financial
interests were in no condition to withstand a shock; for a long
time many of them had been under fire. He had committed his
associates to a program of commercial expansion, never too secure
even under favorable conditions, and one, moreover, which had
provoked a tremendous assault from rival steel manufacturers. Now,
with Hammon himself stricken at the crisis of the struggle, there
was no telling what results might follow.

But Merkle's apprehensions were by no means as purely selfish as
his immediate train of thought might imply; nor were they by any
means confined to the probable cost in dollars and cents of his
associate's death. Hammon and he had been friends for many years;
they shared a mutual respect and affection, and, although Merkle
was eminently practical and unemotional, he prayed now as best he
could that this alarm might be false, and that Hammon might not be
grievously injured. Meanwhile he wedged himself into the cushions
of the reeling car and urged his driver to more speed.