Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“But I told you; I’m having a confab.”

“Listen, Cresap, you’re not in the newspaper business, so perhaps you don’t get the point. This letter is news, but I can’t touch it until it’s sent — that’s what makes it public, that’s what puts it on the record.”

“I do get the point. That’s the idea.”

“Well, thanks. And thanks.”

“Mr. Olsen,” I said very quietly, “I’m Mr. Landry’s counsel, and I don’t act for you, or the news, or the record. I act for him, and only him. If submitting the letter helps him, I submit. If not, if the confab says I shouldn’t, I don’t submit it. Now if you want to be present—”

“You know what this sounds like to me?”

“All right, Mr. Olsen, what?”

“Like you’re using me for a cat’s-paw.”

“Then call it that.”

“I call it what it is.”

“So I’m using you for a cat’s-paw, but if you don’t want to be one, just hand me the copy back, and I’ll find somebody else.”

“... What’s the rest of it?”

“You asking as a cat’s-paw?”

“As a cat’s-paw, yes. What next?”

“It’s very simple.”

I told him there was another person I had to invite to the confab, and that all he had to do was meet me at headquarters in an hour and let nature take its course. By the way he nodded, I knew he would be there.

I walked down to the City Hotel, turned in the key of 303, and when I got to the third floor, opened the room with my skeleton for a quick look. It was all just as I’d left it, even to the rumpled bed, except the two twenties were gone. I locked up and kept on to 346. Pierre opened as usual, giving no sign he connected me with the goings-on of last night — though of course, except for his brief interlude with a lady, he had no reason to know there’d been any goings-on. While he was calling Burke I had a flash at the basket: it was empty. So there weren’t any dangling ends, and Burke was surprised to see me. I told him: “I’ve been thinking things over since I saw you yesterday, and I’m making one last try on behalf of Mr. Landry, a direct appeal, man to man, to the Commanding General himself.”

“Me boy, it does you credit.”

But when he found out I’d already written the letter, he balked and demanded to see it. I said: “Mr. Burke, naturally I’d like your judgment, and I’d show it to you gladly, except for one thing: If I don’t help Mr. Landry, if I actually worsen his case, you’re the one hope he’ll have to undo what I’ve done. But in that case, you must be able to say you had nothing to do with the letter, didn’t even see it. And, naturally, you wouldn’t say so if it weren’t actually true.”

“... Naturally not.”

“ But , I’m reading it to them first.”

“Reading to whom? And why?”

“To that bunch up there — those officers, up at headquarters. As a way of playing it safe, to see how it goes. If I’ve hit a sour note then I can tear it up, and perhaps you’ll step in. But I think you ought to be there.”

What I actually thought was: He dared not not be there. He stared, while the rheum in his eyes glittered, and then said: “Me boy, I find this peculiar.”

“But if you don’t want to go, Mr. Burke—”

“I must, but... What does this letter say?”

“What can it say? ‘Please sir, let him out.’ ”

He asked more questions, but now that I knew he would come, I was gaining nerve, and gave him open-faced answers. In the end he had no choice and picked up his hat and coat. Outside I called up a hack, but as we got in he told the driver: “We’re taking another passenger — stop at Lavadeau’s costume shop.”

At Lavadeau’s, he hopped out and ducked inside, I suspected to find out what she knew about it. When he came out she was with him, her eyes big question marks. I had hopped out by that time too, and as we stood on the banquette I told her: “Mrs. Fournet, I hope you approve this thing I’m about to attempt — it’ll be nice if all of us pull together. But, whether you approve or not, as counsel I must do as I think best. It’s my responsibility.”

“Well, since I don’t know what you’re doing—”

“You will, all in due time.”

We both sounded cold, and he apparently didn’t twig that we were doing an act. When he’d handed her into the cab and taken his place beside her, I took the facing seat, so her eyes could rove my face. They had a fishy look, or a good imitation thereof. At headquarters, he was for holding things up until we could get an order for the guard to fetch Mr. Landry, but that was completely forgotten when Olsen stepped out of the wire office. “We can’t have the press in this,” Burke roared in a kind of panic. “ ’Twould ruin us, me boy — the General makes the announcements! ’Tis how the thing is done!”

She said stuff of a similar kind, taking cue as I looked at her, but I shrugged it off. “Olsen’s all right,” I said. “He’ll give us a fair report.”

Then I led the way upstairs.

Dan Dorsey was surprised at the visitation, as I hadn’t given him any notice, but sat us down politely, and when I told him what we were there for sent the orderly out for more chairs, then went across the hall himself and came back with Major Jenkins. We had the pleasantries, including introductions to Mignon. Then I said to the officers: “Gentlemen, as Mr. Landry’s counsel, I’ve decided to make an appeal, a man-to-man thing, to the Commanding General himself, asking the release of a citizen who’s broken no law, who’s not even charged yet, who’s done nothing whatever but help those very boys, discharged Confederate vets, this Army is trying to reconstruct.”

“One moment,” said the major. “If this is an appeal for clemency, it can’t be from nothing — has to be from something, the verdict of a court. But no verdict’s been rendered yet. And if he’s going to plead, as you indicated he would, how can he make an appeal from his own admission of guilt? I find myself confused.”

“It’s an appeal to reason. To ordinary sense.”

“On the basis of the evidence?”

“Now you’ve got it, Major.”

“Evidence is for a court to pass upon.”

“Major, the Commanding General’s supreme, even overriding a court, certainly overriding you. Do you presume to decide what letters he may receive?”

That calmed things down somewhat, but my eye crossed hers and, perhaps thinking she saw a cue, she cut in, pretty sharp: “Just a moment! I want our lawyer in this!”

“Certainly,” I said. “I mean to consult him, of course. But first I want to read my letter to these gentlemen, for phraseology, so your father has the benefit—”

“Then revise for final submission?” asked Dan.

“That’s it — with the lawyer’s help.”

“Then all right,” she said.

I glanced around, and everyone looked worried, each for a different reason, except Olsen, who seemed bored and to whom no one was paying attention. It was just about how I wanted it. I started reading the letter, and to the preliminaries like “your attention is respectfully invited,” they hardly seemed to be listening. At my first real point, “intent is the heart of this case,” the major yawned openly. But then suddenly he leaned forward, as very quietly I read: “While we don’t deny that Mr. Landry shipped the shoes, or that some of them may have reached Taylor, we do insist that no proof has been brought that Mr. Landry foresaw this result, or in any way connived at it, and we emphatically take exception to the principle that a man can be held criminally responsible for acts the enemy commits. We would think it passing strange, esteemed Sir, if the President of our country placed you under arrest every time a Confederate guerrilla captured a few supplies.”