AMICABLE INTERVIEWS
The lawyer who never practised reached the Tippecanoe Club every
week-day at exactly thirty minutes past twelve o’clock. Within five
minutes he had usually taken one sip from a martini cocktail, dry,
after which he was ready to discuss the news of the day for ten or
fifteen minutes before going to the grill-room for luncheon. A good
figure of a man was Copeland. He had steady brown eyes in which a keen
humor lurked, and his hair that had once been black was now white;
but he was still young and the snowy cap over his dark features was
becoming. In a frock coat Copeland would have graced the Senate or the
president’s cabinet table.
He had telephoned Leighton to meet him one day near the end of
September and Morris came in as Copeland finished his cocktail.
“Nothing? You reject my offer? It’s better so at your age. When I was
in the practice,--”
“That was in the day,” said Morris, “when a law library in these parts
meant the state decisions, a few text-books and a jug of peach brandy
behind the stove. Our Supreme Court has held--”
“Our Supreme Court,” began Copeland in his crisp, level tone, “is
supreme in nothing so much as in its own stupidity. They have
established precedents in torts that are utterly opposed to the best
English decisions. Why, sir--”
Leighton grinned and Copeland changed the subject abruptly. This matter
of the idiocy of the Supreme Court was a joke of long standing between
Copeland and his friends at the bar. They were forever mailing him
catalogues of law books and abstracts of curious decisions from legal
periodicals for his edification. He really read law for diversion and
enjoyed particularly suits involving the duties and obligations of
common carriers.
Copeland, whom Leighton greatly admired, was a man of serious habits
and pleasant fancies. He had, for example, a way of whistling when
angry or annoyed,--a curiously mournful whistle that was gloomy
with foreboding, and heavy with the sorrow of the world. He had
begun life as the credit man of the corporation of which he was now
president, which may explain his gravity. He was himself the originator
of the plausible dictum that the credit man in a refrigerator
factory--Copeland’s ice-boxes were sold in twenty states--suffers
necessarily from intellectual chilblains. Copeland spoke in a dry,
tart way that lent weight to his dicta, whether he was talking at the
club or addressing the directors of his company. He was thoroughly
self-contained and with emotions that never got out of bounds. About
once a month he received and declined an offer of the presidency of
some bank or trust company. A business man who is a good fellow, and
who, moreover, can say no to his best friend without offense, names his
own salary in this golden age of commerce.
Copeland continued to speak with characteristic crispness.
“I have a customer up in the country who has made the acquaintance of
your particular friend, Mr. Jack Balcomb. Do you follow me?”
“Your customer must be a man of parts. Balcomb does not cultivate
people unless he sees something pretty good in them.”
“I believe that is correct. Well, my customer, whose name is Jennings,
has bought some stock in what is known as the Patoka Land and
Improvement Company, of which Balcomb is treasurer and one thing and
another. There’s a lawyer up there in his building--”
“Van Cleve,” suggested Leighton.
“That’s the chap. His eyes look like a bowl of clam broth. He’s the
attorney for the company. The reason he holds the job is not difficult
to determine. His father is a banker down here on the river somewhere
and is well-to-do. Balcomb, I understand, is teaching Van Cleve how
things are done in large cities.”
“He’s a competent teacher. Go on.”
“Yes; but graduate work is a little stiff for a beginner.”
“We needn’t take that up now. Where do I come in?”
“Somewhat as follows: A client of your office is also in the game to
a certain extent. I refer to Ezra Dameron, that genial, warm-hearted,
impulsive old fossil. They tell me on the quiet that he’s been
monkeying with options. He’s selling this company the old Roger Merriam
property south of town at half its value and he’s given them an
option on his strip of land out here on the creek. You know Balcomb’s
scheme. He’s going to build an ideal flat out here at the edge of
town,--fountains playing everywhere, roof gardens, native forest
trees,--it’s a delightful prospect. Dameron’s corner is a great place
for it. It makes no difference whether the scheme is practicable or
not. Balcomb makes it sound awfully good. It’s been written up in the
newspapers most seductively. It’s so good that only the elect can get
in.”
“I know Balcomb and his habits of thought. How much is he paying
Dameron for that property?”
“Balcomb has an option at sixty thousand. Jennings told me that the
stock-holders had already paid in most of their money so that the
purchase could be made at once. The price is amazingly low. He must
be hard up. Balcomb tells Jennings and the rest of them that he
bought those lots merely to be able to get that creek strip; but it’s
a bargain and they’ll make a good thing out of the lots. But what’s
the matter with Ezra? I thought perhaps Carr’s relations with Dameron
were such that this information would interest you. The property is
part of the Margaret Dameron trusteeship and I hope Miss Dameron will
get all she’s entitled to. I believe that’s the most curious will
that was ever probated in our county,” Copeland continued, with the
exaggerated gravity with which he talked of legal matters. “But that
woman certainly had an extraordinary faith in her husband. Nobody
else in this township would trust Ezra Dameron round the corner with
a hot base-burner. But Mrs. Dameron was as proud as Lucifer. She was
a Merriam and she must have thought that by leaving her property to
Ezra in trust for their daughter she would put a corner-stone under his
honor. But the trusteeship expires on the first of October and the old
man is selling property at a ridiculous figure to a nasty little crook.
It looks rather queer, doesn’t it?”
“Dameron must have had something of his own; he had his wife’s property
to play with and if he hasn’t done well with it it’s his own fault. I’m
sorry that he has fallen into Balcomb’s hands.”
“Oh, well; you can’t make a silk purse out of a sardine’s tail,”
observed Copeland, reflectively. “And I fear that Ezra is a sardine.”
“Excuse me,”--and Copeland went suddenly to the window and looked out
over the tops of the maples in the club yard.
“What are you looking for--an answer in the stars?”
“No; there’s a big Chicago jobber in town to-day--sells more ice-boxes
than any man in the business, and I was taking note of the weather
signs. He’s a high sky man. You can’t do anything with him on a cloudy
day. You see, I’m selling for next year’s delivery, and I need a bright
sunny day for that chap. A little warmth in the air is a powerful
reminder that summer is coming. Of course you _can_ sell refrigerators
in the dead of winter, but you need a hot room to do it in. We keep
our office at a temperature of eighty degrees all winter, so that
when we catch a buyer, we create a sort of torrid zone for him. It
helps business, but occasionally one dies of pneumonia from subsequent
exposure. However, in such cases of mortality our Supreme Court has
held--”
“Well, you can file a brief, old man. We have this other business on
hand now.”
They went in to their luncheon and when they came out into the club
office Copeland scanned the bulletin board as he felt in his pocket for
a cigar.
“J. Arthur Balcomb,” he read from one of the applications for
membership that had just been posted. Then he looked at Leighton.
“Is that your autograph, or is it forged?”
“It’s mine. He asked me to indorse for him; and I didn’t have the sand
to refuse. He’s been trying to break in for several years.”
“That’s all right. I will save you any embarrassment.” And Copeland
took a penknife from his pocket, and pried out the tacks by which the
application was fastened to the board, then folded the paper very
carefully into a long strip.
“Ashes to ashes,” he said solemnly, and held the paper over the cigar
lighter until it flamed. Then he lighted his cigar with it, puffing
slowly until the flame crept to his fingers.
“Thank you,” said Morris. “It will save me the trouble of speaking to
the committee.”
When Morris reached his office, he found a first draft of Margaret
Dameron’s will, written in lead pencil on a faded piece of manila
paper, in Carr’s small regular hand. Leighton had come upon it once in
cleaning out an old desk, and he had put it among his own papers as an
interesting specimen of Carr’s handiwork. He unfolded the sheets now
and examined intently the form of the will. The terms were clear and
unequivocal; he noted the change of word and phrase here and there, in
every case an improvement in the interest of directness and clarity.
There was no question as to the meaning of the will. Real estate was
not to be sold except by permission of the court; and proceeds were
to be reinvested in other realty. There was good sense in the idea,
but had Dameron sold the Roger Merriam addition entire to the Patoka
Company without referring the sale to the court?
The question must be answered, and he went to the court-house and asked
permission of the recorder to look at the deed from Ezra Dameron,
trustee, to the Patoka Land and Improvement Company. It was in the
hands of a clerk for transcribing, but Morris was allowed to examine
it. It was written in Dameron’s hand, and had been copied from a
printed form of trustee’s deed. The consideration was twenty thousand
dollars, the receipt of which was duly acknowledged. Leighton was a
lawyer and he felt a lawyer’s disgust with the situation that the case
presented. Dameron was clearly in serious need of ready money or he
would not be selling real estate at a ridiculous figure. It was also
patent that in his necessity he had turned to Balcomb as a man who
would not scruple at oblique practices.
Morris went the next day to the office of a title company where he
was acquainted and waited while the secretary made up a list of the
property held by Ezra Dameron, trustee. He found that the sale of the
Roger Merriam addition, which had just been reported, left the creek
property, The Beeches and the old Merriam homestead the only realty
remaining in the trust.
“I thought Mr. Dameron was a heavy real estate owner,” remarked Morris.
“That’s a popular superstition,” said the secretary; “but he’s sold
it off rapidly during the past two years. He owns nothing personally,
and he has been converting his daughter’s property very fast. I hope
there’s nothing wrong about it.”
“I don’t know. Are you sure he hasn’t been buying other real estate?
Something of the kind is required by the terms of his wife’s will.”
“Not in this county at least.” The secretary was silent for a moment.
“It would be a delicious irony if Ezra were to turn up broke, wouldn’t
it?” he said, grinning.
“That depends on the point of view,” remarked Morris.
He decided to go direct to Dameron and speak to him of the defect in
the deed, more from curiosity as to what the old man would say than
with any idea of helping the situation. It was an unwarrantable act on
his part, considered professionally or personally; but he justified
himself on the score of the old relationship between Carr and Dameron.
Carr was out of reach; Leighton did not even know his exact address at
this time. And there was old Rodney Merriam, his best friend, and there
was Zelda!
Dameron sat at his desk with a mass of papers before him as Leighton
entered. The old man wore a serious air, to which the mass of papers
contributed. They were in fact merely the outgrowth of his dreams,--his
efforts to reduce dreams to tangible problems in mathematics.
A puzzled look crossed Dameron’s face as he raised his eyes and
regarded Leighton dreamily. Then suddenly, as though just recalling
Leighton, he smiled and rose from his chair.
“My dear Mr. Leighton, this is a rare honor; I am delighted to see you,
sir.”
He had never greeted Leighton so cordially before.
“Pardon me, Mr. Dameron, I have come on an impertinent errand.”
“I can’t imagine it,” said the old man, graciously.
“But I do so on the score of your old friendship with Mr. Carr. He is
absent or I should have referred the subject of my errand to him.”
“I appreciate your kindness. Pray be seated.” The old man sat down,
still smiling, and he brought the tips of his fingers together with his
characteristic gesture.
“Thank you; but I can’t stop. As I said before, my errand is a trifle
impertinent. You undoubtedly have your own counsel,--in Mr. Carr’s
absence.”
“Myself! I have enjoyed Mr. Carr’s advice through so many years that
I feel I have a fair knowledge of the law. We have both,”--and he
indicated Morris by a gesture--“we have both enjoyed the instruction of
an excellent preceptor,” and he bowed over his hands. “Well, sir!”
“I have just happened to learn of a deed given by you to the Patoka
Land and Improvement Company for a block of lots lying south of town.
Of course, it is a pure oversight, but you neglected to get an order of
court, approving the sale. I thought I would mention it to you. It is a
sale of some importance. And now I am sure you will pardon me.”
Morris turned toward the door, but the old man rose and extended his
hand.
“Ah,” he began, with a droll air of coquetry, “we _have_ had the
same preceptor! You have a capital eye, Mr. Leighton. I quite admire
it in you; and I thank you. I am aware of the provision you indicate.
But I have provided for it. The judge is away from home just now and
the gentlemen to whom I have sold were anxious to get title without
delay. It doesn’t look quite regular, I admit. My duties as trustee are
nearly at an end. Only a few days more of responsibility. We will make
a new deed if necessary,--but the purchaser will be protected. We are
all--all honorable men!”
“Very good, sir; I am sorry to have disturbed you,”--and Leighton went
out. Dameron’s manner had been odd; the old man had frequently spoken
to him at home, but usually with cold formality; but his greeting a
moment before had been with exuberant cordiality. Morris had never
quite made Dameron out, and he was not satisfied with an explanation
that the poorest lawyer at the Mariona bar would reject instantly. And
the old man had deliberately lied about the absence of the judge of the
court, whom Morris had seen but a few hours before.
Morris had often thought of the old man during the past year as of
a gray shadow that haunted Zelda Dameron, grim and despicable but
inevitably linked to the girl’s life. He must save Zelda from the
consequences of her father’s acts if he could. It was out of the
question for him to approach her with a warning against her father; but
he would go to her uncle; and he walked directly to Rodney Merriam’s
house in Seminary Square.
As the door closed on Leighton, Dameron went to an adjoining office and
asked a neighbor’s errand boy to carry a note for him. He scrawled a
few words bidding Balcomb come to the Dameron Block at once on urgent
business.
The bubble that Ezra Dameron had blown upon the air was near the end
of its perilous voyage. His dream of corn at a dollar a bushel--a
dream wrought of the filmiest shadows--was dispelled. The danger of a
great destruction of corn by mid-September frosts had passed. A member
of the Chicago firm of brokers through whom he had been trading, had
called that day, having paid a visit to Mariona merely to see what
manner of man it was who had cast money upon the waters so prodigally,
maintaining a fantastic dream of values at the expense of a small
fortune.
“This year--this year--the elements were against us, my dear sir;
but another year all will be well. There shall be no corn in Egypt,”
declared Dameron, shaking his head sagely.
And the broker went away mystified, but fully believing that another
man had gone mad over the great game. The contracts for October
delivery which Ezra Dameron had been carrying had availed him nothing.
Throughout the vast areas of the corn belt the security of the golden
yield was assured. The crop was enormous; there was no more chance of
corn going to a dollar than of the sun and moon reversing their places
and functions in the heavens.
Leighton’s call had made Dameron uneasy. He had squandered his own
property months before; and now Zelda’s estate was largely dissipated;
and he faced the necessity of rendering an account of his stewardship
within a few hours. Leighton undoubtedly knew something of the
transactions by which the real estate held by Ezra Dameron, trustee,
had been sold; and if Leighton knew, then Rodney Merriam, who was at
home again, would undoubtedly know at once. He must save himself; a
plan had formed in his mind by which he could hide his duplicity and
put off for a year--perhaps forever--the fact that the greater part of
Zelda’s property was gone. But first he must get into his own hands
the option he had given Balcomb for the sale of the creek strip. The
sale had hung fire unexpectedly; but he rejoiced that this property had
been saved until the last; he firmly believed that he should ultimately
bring back to the empty treasury the money he had thrown away; but
while he waited he must study more minutely the conditions that created
prices. In a short while, all would be well again; but he must retain
his hold upon what remained of Zelda’s property. Capital would be
necessary for his future operations. The creek strip must be saved and
held for a greater price than the option carried.
Balcomb came in looking a trifle annoyed.
“I wish you wouldn’t send for me at the busiest hour of my busiest day,
Mr. Dameron. I suppose you want to know about the purchase of the creek
strip. Well, we’re not quite ready to close it to-day. That’s a big
scheme and all our money isn’t paid in yet.”
“Then the option,--I must have back the option at once.” And the old
man spoke in a peremptory tone that was in marked contrast with the
mildly insistent note he had of late been using.
“Not at all, sir. That is a thirty-day option and has ten days longer
to run.”
“To be sure; but the trust expires to-morrow; I had no right to bind
the estate beyond my trusteeship. To-morrow is my daughter’s birthday.
My administration of her affairs is ended. I must trouble you to give
me the paper.”
“Not much, I won’t! We’ve been delayed for a few days; but you’ve got
to carry out the deal. That was part of the consideration when we
took your lots; and moreover you accepted money on the option. The
trusteeship doesn’t cut any ice. Of course, your daughter is morally,
if not legally, bound by your acts. I can’t stop any longer. Before
the tenth of October we’ll be ready to close, and meanwhile you’ll
please be good enough to remember that approval of the sale of those
lots. Some of these people we’re selling to may be silly enough to have
the title looked into,--and I don’t want any nonsense about it. You
remember I fixed all that with my company to please you,--merely to
get that option. My own hands are clean, you understand, if anything
happens. Good day, Mr. Dameron.”
“But wait,--I can’t do it; I must have that option--” began Dameron,
and there was a pitiful whine in his voice; but Balcomb went out and
slammed the door.
J. Arthur Balcomb had enjoyed a successful year. Things were running
smoothly with him; he had no doubt in the world that he could enforce
his option on the creek strip of land whenever he wished. He knew Zelda
Dameron, and he was quite convinced that she was not a girl to avoid
obligations incurred by her father.