A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“They do for a fact.”

“If you’ve heard anything about any of my legal activities and came to me because it had been rumored I could beat the Blue Sky Act. Well, I want to know about it. I’d be willing to be generous — you know, grateful.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

His eyes narrowed. “I take it,” he said sarcastically, “the idea just popped into your head. You said to yourself, ‘Now, I want to approach Crumweather and get him to talk. What’s the best way to get him to open up? Ah, I have it. Tell him I want to beat the Blue Sky Act.’ ”

“That’s right.”

“Bunk!”

I puffed at my cigarette.

He studied me for a while, and then said, “You know, Donald — I’m going to call you Donald because you seem like a boy to me, not that I’m commenting on your immaturity, but simply because I’m a much older man, and I’ve taken a fatherly interest in you.”

“Have you?”

“I have indeed. You know you have a very shrewd mind. There’s something about you that appeals to me. I’ve investigated your past a bit— You’ll understand my interest in you?”

“I understand.”

He beamed, then the beam expanded into a chuckle. “You do, at that,” he said.

We were silent for a minute, then Crumweather went on. “I find that you’ve had a legal education. Most interesting. I consider a legal education a wonderful foundation for success in almost any field of endeavour.”

“Primarily in the law business,” I said.

He threw back his head and laughed. “A dry sense of humor, my boy, very dry, very interesting. You know, a man with your keenness of perception could make a great deal of money in the law business — if he had the proper connections. It’s very difficult for a young lawyer to open an office, finance the purchase of books and office furniture, and then wait for clients to come in.”

“So I understand.”

“But persons who have a well-established law practice are sometimes willing to consider offering junior partnerships to men with the right amount of ability.”

I didn’t say anything.

He said, “I find, Donald, that you had an argument with the grievance committee in regard to legal ethics. You told a client how to commit a murder and avoid all legal responsibility.”

“I didn’t tell him anything of the sort. I was discussing abstract law.”

“The committee didn’t so understand it — the committee also said that you were in error.”

“I know they did, but it worked out. It actually held water.”

He rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, chuckling. “It did for a fact,” he admitted. “I happen to know one of the members of the grievance committee. I called the matter to his attention. He found it an embarrassing subject.”

“You cover a lot of territory yourself,” I observed.

“At times I do — not physically, but mentally. I find that a person keeps his mind keyed to a higher pitch if he conserves his physical energy as much as possible.”

I said, “All right, let’s quit beating around the bush. Where’s Esther Clarde?”

He stroked the long angle of his bony jaw with gnarled fingers. “I’m glad you’ve brought that up. I was wondering just how to broach the subject. I—”

The secretary popped her head in the door. “A long-distance call,” she said, “from—”

The smile left Crumweather’s face as though he’d ripped off a mask. His lips were ugly and snarling, his eyes hard and intolerant. “I told you I wasn’t to be interrupted. I told you what to do. Get out there and do it, and don’t—”

“It’s a long-distance call from Valleydale. The man says it’s terribly important.”

Crumweather thought that over for a minute. “All right, I’ll take the call.”

He picked up the telephone on his desk. His face was without expression. Only his eyes gave evidence of extreme mental concentration. After a while I heard a click and Crumweather said, “Hello... Yes, this is Crumweather. What do you want?”

I couldn’t hear anything coming in over the wire, but I could watch his face. I saw him frown, then the eyebrows raise just a bit. The mouth tightened. He glanced at me as though afraid that, through some psychic eavesdropping, I might be hearing what was reaching his left ear through the receiver. My expression reassured him, but the tendency to furtive secrecy was strong in the man. He cupped the palm of his right hand over the mouthpiece as though that would bottle up the telephone.

After a few seconds Crumweather moved his hand from the mouthpiece long enough to say, “You have to be absolutely certain you aren’t making any mistakes about this,” and then slid his hand back quickly.

Again he listened, and slowly nodded. “All right. Keep me posted.”

He listened a little while longer, then said, “All right, good-by,” and hung up. He looked at me speculatively, doubled his left fist, wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the knuckles, and squeezed until the knuckles popped. He picked up the telephone, and said to his secretary, “Let me have an outside line.” He dialed a number, taking pains to see that I couldn’t watch what number he was calling. He said, “Hello, this is Crumweather — all right. Now listen, get this straight. I want the operations reversed. Where you’ve been selling, you’ll have to buy. Quit selling immediately and buy back what you’ve sold . That’s right — I can’t explain — not right now. Do what I say. Well, suppose there was more of a foundation of fact than you’d thought — everything was just the way you — well, let’s look at it this way. Suppose a man was making a three-minute talk, and suppose everything he said in that three minutes happened to be not only true but true on a bigger scale than he’d even dared to dream — that’s right — you haven’t any time to waste. This thing is going to leak out. Call in all the men and get busy.”

He hung up the telephone and turned to me. It took him a minute to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“Esther Clarde,” I reminded him.

“Oh, yes,” he said, and his face once more settled into that fixed, frozen smile. “You know you made a most remarkable impression on that young woman, Donald.”

“Did I?”

“You did. I mean you really did.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“You should be. It was most advantageous for you, but you see, I’m an older man and a wiser man, and, if I may say so, an older friend. Before she’d take any drastic steps, she’d consult me.”

“You’ve known her for some time?”

“Oh, yes, a very nice young woman — a very nice young woman.”

“That makes it nice,” I said.

“I can appreciate her generosity,” Crumweather said, “in trying to protect you, Donald, but I can’t condone it.”

“No?”

“No, not for a moment. Of course, Donald, a desperate man will do almost anything; but, even so, I can’t appreciate how any man could so far forget himself as to let a woman put himself in the position of being an accessory after the fact, an accomplice to the crime of murder.”

“Indeed.”

“And I have so advised Esther Clarde. It may interest you to know, Donald, that I talked with her early this morning. I have an appointment with her at ten-thirty. I’ve persuaded her that the only thing to do is to call the officers and confess frankly that she tried to protect you.”

“You mean reverse her statement?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Her identification won’t amount to much if she goes on the stand now and swears I was the one who went into the hotel.”

He was positively beaming. “That’s right, Donald, that’s right. You have a very clear legal mind, but if she said that you had bribed her not to identify you, that it was because of this bribe she lied to the officers, but that afterward she had competent legal advice and realized that that made her an accessory after the fact — well, Donald, that legal mind of yours won’t have any difficulty in putting two and two together.”