CHAPTER XXVIII
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.