Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture
floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son
whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had
seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling
downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he
could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and
again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie.
"What do you suggest?"
Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo
on his waistcoat.
"Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication
table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?"
Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely
respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From
the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck.
"Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your
client wants."
"What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension."
Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of
us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to
avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet----Well, well!
Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand,
how would that do?"
Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's
measure.
"For what?"
"To settle it."
That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which
occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench.
"Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my
client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one
ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less."
Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as
well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old,
back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he
always had been--just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for
Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were
new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws.
Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish.
But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up.
"Very good. I will give the matter my attention."
"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will
apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your
good lady."
He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The
matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand
on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and
helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount!
Hum!
For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had
been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last
resort, the Paliser Case had been decided.