[ Illustration: Almost Instantly Saki Entered ]
NONE of the firm—least of all the junior partner, myself—knew just how Doctor Migraine had become one of our customers. He came to us just as thousands of other stock-brokers' clients come to them: passed along by some chance word or owing to some trifling dissatisfaction with some one else; just as, in fact, of his own patients—if he had any probably came to him. He was a large, full-chested, deep-voiced, black-bearded man, such as usually takes the part of the Russian Grand Duke in the melodramas, yet he lacked markedly any of the assertiveness of a Romanoff, and indeed, at times,was almost provokingly retiring and unassuming. For he was a fine figure of a man, and his mere presence in our customers' room, on those rare occasions when he visited our offices, was enough to send rumors flying of a possible advance in Russian 6s or a probable slump in Japanese 4s.
But he was only an occasional customer. Often his massive, carefully—tailored form would not darken our door for months. Then, usually when the market was as dull as a millpond and nothing was doing—except traders playing for "eighths," like minnows skipping in the shallows—he would enter unannounced and pass silently into the senior partner's private office. There he would give his orders, always in some single stock and always for thousand and five thousand share lots, and invariably the market would advance or react to suit his purposes. Then he would sell or cover, as the case might be, and take his profits away with him in the shape of a certified check, which inevitably came back with the indorsement of a world-powerful banking house upon its reverse. He always stayed and saw the deal through, and, as I distinctly recall, always sat in the same posture upon the same corner of the sofa until it was all over—chin in hand.
And he always guessed right. Charlie Buck used to say he must be either Harriman's chef or J. P. Morgan's valet in disguise. Everything he touched moved one way or the other. He was like a sudden squall striking down from off the mountains upon a summer sea. The market might have shown every sign of stagnation; but, once let the good Migraine superimpose himself upon Buck's sofa and order a few thousand Reading or Colorado Fuel, and it would begin positively to boil with activity. I have seen Migraine come into our ofiice when the ticker had been still for minutes—you know what that means—just rapping out a hundred shares or so of Union every little while, simply from a sense of decency, as it were, and in less than no time the whole market would be jumping. It was curious if the word is sufficiently expressive; Buck called it "uncanny." For a short haul the doctor seemed infallible. He never left an open order on our books—the deal had to be finished and the money in his pocket before he left the office. That was another thing that struck us as singular. Almost anybody will get a copper—fastened tip once in a while that will absolutely compel him, if he has any sort of a soul, to buy or sell the market as a matter of conscience with the certainty of a big profit some time in the course of a week, two weeks or a month. Migraine never did that sort of thing. He never carried a stock over night, but, whatever he went into, he guessed right the very first time. And the money I have seen him pocket without a quiver! Singularly emotionless he was—and still is—as if money were nothing to him; and I verily believe it is not, save as a means to a certain end. Buck and I could not imagine where he got his information, but in the end we decided that he was a sort of agent for some one of the big fellows, and simply thanked our good luck for getting the commissions and at first let it go at that. But in the end we followed Migraine every time until—but that can wait. Yet, in point of fact, there was nothing uncanny about the doctor himself, even if he did appear to have supernatural powers of divination.
He was an immaculate, seemingly matter-of-fact sort of person, blue-eyed, white-toothed and scented with heliotrope. The Russian Grand Duke business was instinctive with him, and the sight of his huge, whiskered frame wrapped in a black frock coat and surmounted by a gleaming silk hat was enough to make an office boy draw his heels together with a click and give a royal salute. That was another thing we never could understand—why he should come at all. Our biggest customers stay uptown and use the telephone. But he never telephoned.