"Seriously."
"Who wouldn't?"
"All right, drop the word to Paul Brennan and collect the reward."
"Can you protect yourself?"
"I can quote Gladstone from one end to the other. I can cite every civil
suit regarding the majority or minority problem that has any importance.
If I fail, I'll skin out of there in a hurry on the next train. But I
can't wait forever."
"What's the gimmick, James?"
"First, I am sick and tired of running and hiding, and I think I've got
enough to prove my point and establish my rights. Second, there is a bit
of cupidity here; the reward money is being offered out of my own
inheritance so I feel that I should have some say in where it should go.
Third, the fact that I steer it into the hands of someone I'd prefer to
get it tickles my sense of humor. The trapper trapped; the bopper bopped;
the sapper hoist by his own petard."
"And--?"
"It isn't fair to Martha, either. So the sooner we get this whole affair
settled, the sooner we can start to move towards a reasonable way of
life."
"Okay, but how are we going to work it? I can't very well turn up by
myself, you know."
"Why not?"
"People would think I'm a heel."
"Let them think so. They'll change their opinion once the whole truth is
known." James smiled. "It'll also let you know who your true friends
are."
"Okay. Twenty-five hundred bucks and a chance at the last laugh sounds
good. I'll talk it over with Janet."
That night they buried Charles Maxwell, the Hermit of Martin's Hill.