The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

Nellie threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his cheek. Edna wrested the gun from his hands. He did not resist. He would die himself before he let harm come to either of them. Edna, his adopted stepdaughter, a cub reporter for the Oil City Derrick who had just graduated from Allegheny College, was the quiet one. The younger, outgoing Nellie usually did the talking. She did now, cloaking urgency with good-humored teasing.

“Whom do you intend to shoot, Father?” she joshed in a strong voice. “Do burglars lurk?”

“I came so close,” he muttered. “So close.”

“You’ll do better next time.”

Matters lifted his head from his hands and raised his gaze to the clear-eyed, slender young women. The half sisters looked nearly alike, having inherited their mother’s silky chestnut hair and strong, regular features, but there the similarity ended. One was an open book. One a vault of secrets.

“Do you know what Rockefeller did?” he asked.

“If he drowned in the river, they’d find his body upstream,” said Edna. “JDR is the master of the unexpected.”

“I wish he would drown in the river,” said Nellie.

“So do I,” said Matters. “More than ever.” He told them about Rockefeller’s invitation to join Standard Oil. “Head of the Pipe Line Committee, no less.”

Nellie and Edna looked at the pistol that Edna was still holding, then locked eyes. They were terrified he would kill himself. But would giving up his lifelong fight for independence kill him, too? Only more slowly.

“Maybe you should take it,” said Nellie.

“Father is better than that,” said Edna.

His glistening eyes flickered from their faces to the toy theaters and settled on the gun. Edna drew it closer to her body. A queer smile crossed Matters’ grim face. “Maybe I could be better than that.”

“You are,” they chorused. “You are.”

Their helpless expressions tore him to pieces. “Go,” he said. “Leave me. Keep the gun. Ease your silly minds.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Give me until morning to get used to getting beat.”

He ushered them out and closed the door. Wild thoughts were racing through his mind. He could not sit still. Father is better than that?

He prowled his office. Now and then he paused to peer into the toy theaters. Twice a year he would take the girls on the train to plays in New York. And after the Oil City skating rink was converted to an opera house, they attended every touring company that performed. Shakespeare was their favorite. Romeo loving Juliet. Hamlet promising his father’s ghost revenge. Richard III instructing his henchmen. Secret promises. Secret revenge. Secret plots.

Could he bow his head and accept Rockefeller’s invitation to join the trust?

Or could he pretend to bow his head?

What do you say, Hamlet? Make up your mind. Do you want revenge? Or do you want more? A tenth of Standard Oil’s colossal profits would make him one of the richest men in America. So what? How many meals could a man eat? In how many beds could he sleep?

A tenth of the Standard’s power would crown a king.

What do you say, Richard? How many plots have you laid? What secret mischief?

Even Richard was surprised how blind his enemies were.

Matters calculated the odds by listing his enemy’s weaknesses.

The all-powerful monopoly was like a crack team of strong horses. But seen through Bill Matters’ clear and bitter eye, those horses were blinkered, hobbled, and hunted: hobbled by fear of change; hunted by government prosecutors and Progressive reformers determined to break their monopoly; blinded by Standard Oil’s obsession with secrecy.

Could they be done in like Romeo and Juliet by the confusion of secrets?

The Standard’s systemized secrecy, the secret trusts and hidden subsidiaries that shielded the corporation from public scrutiny, bred intrigue. On the occasions he’d been summoned to the Standard’s offices, he had never been allowed to see another visitor. Who knew what private deals were struck in the next room?

Richard was the man to beat the Standard, the plotter of “secret mischiefs.”