CHAPTER XXXV
A SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS
“Good-by, and hail my fancy!” shouted Balcomb as Leighton entered the promoter’s office. “Excuse my quotation from Whitman, the good gray poet; but you always suggest bright college years, the dearest, best of life to me, Demetrius.”
“I don’t want to suggest anything to you, Balcomb. I’ve come to talk seriously about an unpleasant matter.”
“The devil you have! You’ve certainly brought a death’s-head with you.”
“You always had the seeds of scoundrelism in you. I had hoped they wouldn’t sprout; but the sprouts are in full bloom.”
“Sprouts don’t bloom; but we’ll pass that with the gloomy silence it deserves,” said Balcomb, imperturbably lighting a cigarette.
“You’ve been taking advantage of Mr. Dameron. You’ve played upon his necessities and got a block of lots away from him for nothing. You’ve also got an option from him on the strip of land out there on the creek where you propose putting up that flat you’ve been talking about. While you were planning this you were going to his house, where his daughter received you with courtesy. And I suppose that, in a way, I was responsible for you. I rather let it be inferred that you were a good fellow, and I allowed you to mention that we had been friends in college, though I knew all the time that you were a blackguard. I really think Miss Dameron might forgive you for involving her father in disgrace, but I don’t think she would ever overlook your attentions to her cousin at a time when you were plotting to swindle a member of the family.”
“You are a fool,” said Balcomb. “I’m not responsible for old man Dameron’s morals, am I? He was crazy to get money and came to me because he knew I had some snap and could get cash for his lots. He lied to me about it all along. You can’t charge me with notice of all the private history of the Dameron family. I didn’t know about the trusteeship until I took the deed. I was just as surprised as anybody when I found it out.”
Leighton smiled at Balcomb’s tone of outraged innocence.
“You’re such a cheerful rogue I don’t believe you really appreciate the fact that there are limits to human enterprise. Now your interurban friends are jays, aren’t they?”
“They are, my brother. They are the genus cyanocitta cristata, or common blue jay, and mighty fine types, I can tell you that.” He slapped his thigh in joy at the thought.
“You are a depraved beast,” declared Leighton. “It seems a shame to disturb your peace of mind; but I came here to talk business. Now, your agricultural friends, when you sprang this lot purchase, asked about the title to the real estate, didn’t they? If they didn’t they are not the farmers I take them for.”
“Your confidence is not misplaced. They did, and they quite satisfied themselves about it.”
“They wanted to see an abstract of title.”
“They certainly did, old man. You’re a regular mind reader.”
“They asked for an abstract of title,” continued Leighton, “and you gave them one, didn’t you?”
“Please don’t mention it, an thou lovest me. They nearly wore out the damned thing studying it.”
“I have seen a copy of the original at the abstracter’s office.”
“Awfully keen of you, I’m sure,” said Balcomb, amiably. “I tell you, you’re a credit to the bar, Morris. You do honor to your preceptor.”
He bowed mockingly, but he was growing a trifle anxious and fingered the papers on his table nervously.
“The abstract, as I was saying, consisted of a good many pages. And there was a certain page forty-two, where a will was set forth, in due form, when you got the document from the abstract office; but when your friend Van Cleve made his report on it for your rural syndicate that particular page was missing, and another, bearing the same page number, but with certain points of the Margaret Merriam will omitted, was substituted. That is quite correct, isn’t it?”
“You may search me! If there’s anything crooked about that abstract it’s not on me, you can bet your life. But say, you’re getting insulting. Now, I’ll tell you something, Leighton, as long as you’ve come to me in this friendly spirit,—this old-college-friendly spirit. I’ve been all over this thing in my mind. I’m not the twittering little birdling you think I am, to fix up a fake abstract and work it off on a lot of reubs. I didn’t order that abstract made; I didn’t have a damned thing to do with it. You seem to think that because there’s a beneficiary of the fifteenth amendment in the cordwood, I must be there somewhere, dressed up like a minstrel first part; but you’re a dead loser. I’m prepared to prove that that abstract of title was ordered by your Uncle Ezra Dameron, and that he gave it to me with his own hands. I guess you’ll have to admit that my reputation in this community is about as good as your Uncle Ezra’s. Now, it wounds my pride to have you talking to me as though I were the traditional villain of our modern melodrama, that you have cornered with a merry ‘Ha, ha! base churl, at last I have tracked thee to thy lair!’ No, darling, you can’t catch me on fly paper—not while my wits are in good working order. If you can see how to save Miss Dameron’s money without getting her dear old papa into the mulligatawney all well and good; but if you’re trying to bring me within the long, lean arm of the penal code you’ll have to get better. It’s your Uncle Ezra that you’re looking for.”
“We’re going to protect the stock-holders of your company whose money has gone into the Roger Merriam lots,” continued Leighton. “I honestly think I could set aside the sale; but we’ll be generous and straighten the title for you.”
“I rather guess you will, or Uncle Ezra wears the stripes.”
“I don’t think I’d say much about the stripes, with that abstract in Harry Copeland’s possession. You know Copeland is rather a persistent fellow, and one of his rural friends is in your company.”
“The devil he is!” But Balcomb batted his eyes uneasily.
“Now give me that option; it isn’t any good, anyhow; but I’ll feel more comfortable to have it out of your hands.”
“You’re welcome to it,” replied Balcomb, fiercely. “The old man’s crooked, and the idea of his being swindled by me or anybody else is funny, as you’d see if you weren’t trying to be his son-in-law. The old fool is playing the bucket shops—”
“I’m in a hurry. Give me the option and get busy about it.”
One of the typewriters came in with a card.
“Excuse me, Mr. Balcomb, but the gentleman said he couldn’t wait,”—and Balcomb rose from the iron safe before which he was bending and snatched the card.
“Tell him I’m engaged. Tell him I don’t want to see him anyhow,” yelled Balcomb, in a voice that was perfectly audible to the waiting caller in the anteroom.
“Here,” he said to Leighton, in the same tone of fury, “here’s your damned option. Give me back the thousand I paid Dameron and go to hell!”
“Now I want you to give me a check for that money you wrung from Mr. Dameron—”
“I didn’t wring any money from him, you yelping ape. I paid him money. You don’t seem to understand this transaction.”
“I understand it perfectly. You reported to your company that twenty thousand would buy that group of lots; you took that amount of money from them, gave Mr. Dameron eighteen thousand and put the rest in your pocket as commission. It sounds well, doesn’t it?”
“He isn’t making any kick, is he? I bet he isn’t. He was perfectly satisfied. He needed money and was glad to sell at any price. I did him a great service.” And Balcomb thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat with the air of a man who is ready and anxious to face the world on any charge.
“Jack, you will write me a check for that money—your commission, as you call it, deducting the one thousand that was paid for this option, or I’ll make Mariona too hot to hold you.”
“This is blackmail, and, by God! I won’t submit to it,” shouted Balcomb.
“Maybe so, and you can get redress later if it is. I want your check—whether it’s any good or not.”
“I’ll give you half of it if the old man’s beefing,” said Balcomb, after a minute’s reflection.
“All—right away—quick!”
Leighton rose and stood with his hands thrust into his pockets while Balcomb turned to his desk and wrote the check.
The girl outside was heard debating with the caller, who refused to be denied.
The door opened suddenly and Leighton, with the check and option in his hand, looked up to see Captain Pollock standing within the partition, his little stick, as usual, under his arm.
“Leighton,” he said quite imperturbably, “I’m awfully sorry to disturb you, but I’m really glad you’re here. In fact, I thought for a moment of going to your office to ask you to come with me—to call on our gifted friend.”
“You get out of here, you damned little—”
“My dear Mr. Balcomb, you’ve called me little before, and other people have called me little, and I can’t help it any more than you can help being a contemptible, lying scoundrel—”
Balcomb made a rush for him, but the captain thrust his stick forward and Balcomb seemed, rather ridiculously, to have impaled himself upon it.
“Stand back, Balcomb,” commanded Leighton, and as Balcomb tried again to reach Pollock, Leighton stepped between them.
“I quite agree with you, Pollock, that Balcomb is a bad lot, but this isn’t the right place for a scrap.”
“I don’t care whether it is or not,” snapped Pollock. “I’m going to muss him up. He’s lied about me; he’s tried to blacken my reputation—”
“You’re a fool,” shouted Balcomb. “I’ve never mentioned you—I wouldn’t mention you.”
“You wouldn’t, wouldn’t you? I should like to know what you meant by writing a letter to the War Department charging me with being drunk here in one of the clubs,—a club, you lying blackguard, that you never were in in your life,—that you couldn’t get inside of to save your neck. You charged me with being drunk and raising a row in that club; and you hinted that I was in collusion with contractors at work on the army post. You don’t deny it, do you?”
“I do, indeed! I never wrote any letter to the War Department on any subject!”
Pollock laughed and took a step toward him.
“Don’t you deny what I tell you before Mr. Leighton! I have the letter here in my pocket. It was sent to me direct by my chief, the very hour it reached him. I suppose you thought they would telegraph my discharge immediately when they got an anonymous letter like that. I’ve a good notion to break your neck right here.”
He was a little fellow, but he seemed suddenly to take on heroic proportions. He whipped open his tightly buttoned coat and drew out an envelope.
“Here’s a letter—do you dare tell me you didn’t write it—an unsigned typewritten letter to the quartermaster-general. I knew instantly where it had come from.”
“I never saw it before; it’s a put-up job,” declared Balcomb, though not in a tone that carried conviction.
“My chief sent it to me,” continued Pollock, “with his indorsement, ‘Better find this fellow and punch his head.’ And now, by the great Lord Harry, I’m going to obey orders!”
Balcomb ducked under Leighton’s arm and bolted for the door, but as his hand found the knob Pollock seized him by the collar and flung him back against the ground-glass partition with a force that shook it.
“Leighton,” said Pollock in his blandest tones, as he held Balcomb against the partition at the end of his stick, “I’ve told you, and probably some of the adjoining tenants have heard me, that Mr. Balcomb is a liar. I wish to add now that he is a coward. Stand up!” he commanded, letting his stick fall, and Balcomb, thus released, made another rush for the door, only to be seized again by the little captain.
Leighton had tried up to this time to keep a straight face, but Balcomb was so clearly frightened to the point of panic that Morris sat down and laughed. Pollock, however, was as grave as an adjutant on parade, and he continued to address Leighton:
“He is a contemptible coward, and I want to warn him before a witness that if he ever appears at any place where I am—I don’t care where or when—I’ll rise and proclaim him. Now get out before I break my stick on you!”
He turned away from Balcomb, who seized the moment to dart into the anteroom, where the two young women stood huddled together, and began giving them orders with a great deal of unnecessary vehemence. Leighton and Pollock followed at once, passing through the anteroom at a leisurely pace set by Pollock. At the outer door the captain paused, lifted his hat with a mockery of courtesy to Balcomb’s back, and remarked in a pleasant tone:
“Good day, Mr. Balcomb. If you should ever need anything in my line please give me the pleasure of a call.”
“Sutler’s clerk!” screamed Balcomb. Pollock made a feint of turning back suddenly and Balcomb darted into his private office and slammed the door.
Leighton leaned against the elevator shaft outside and laughed until the corridors rang and sedate tenants came out to see who was disturbing the peace. He laughed at Balcomb’s anxiety to keep out of Pollock’s way, and he laughed now at Pollock, who joined him, wearing a look of outraged dignity that was altogether out of proportion to his size.
“He called me a sutler’s clerk,” said the captain, twisting his mustache.
“Then he ducked. His insults don’t cut very deep.”
“I owe you an apology,” said Pollock, when they had reached the street, “for running in on you that way; but I had to tell the chap I knew about his lying letter the hour I got it.”
“It’s his busy day. I was there on a similar errand,” said Leighton. “He’s a dangerous person—not in the way of personal violence,”—and they both laughed—“but as an intriguing scoundrel.”
“Say, old man,”—they paused on the corner and Pollock cleared his throat once or twice and struck a trolley pole with his stick as he hesitated. “You don’t think she’s interested in him, do you?”
“Which she are you talking about?”
“I mean Miss Merriam. He’s been about with her a good deal. I just wondered.” And the captain seemed both perplexed and embarrassed as he continued to tap the pole.
“Miss Merriam is a very bright young woman, and bright young women are not easily deceived,” replied Morris.
“You really think they’re not? Well, I devoutly hope they’re not; but I believe I’ll ask her.”
“I think I’d ask her,” said Morris, significantly.
And Captain Frank Pollock walked up-town with a look of determination on his face.