"Your victory" was not very adroit, but it was adroit enough to bedazzle Arthur. "Certainly," said he gratefully.
Dawson shut his long, wild-looking teeth and gently drew back his dry, beard-discolored lips, while his keen eyes glinted behind his spectacles.
The fly had a leg in the web!
Business being thus got into a smooth way, Dawson and Arthur became great friends. Nothing that Dawson said was a specific statement of belief in the ultimate success of the suit; but his every look and tone implied confidence. Arthur went away with face radiant and spirit erect. He felt that he was a man of affairs, a man of consequence, he had lawyers, and a big suit pending; and soon he would be rich. He thought of Janet, and audibly sneered. "I"ll make the Whitneys sick of their treachery!" said he. Back had come his sense of strength and superiority; and once more he was "gracious" with servants and with such others of the "peasantry" as happened into or near his homeward path.
Toward three o"clock that afternoon, as he was being whirled toward Saint X in the Eastern Express, his lawyer was in the offices of Ramsay & Vanorden, a rival firm of wreckers and pirate outfitters on the third floor of the same building. When Dawson had despatched his immediate business with Vanorden, he lingered to say: "Well, I reckon we"ll soon be lined up on opposite sides in another big suit."
Confidences between the two firms were frequent and natural--not only because Vanorden and Dawson were intimate friends and of the greatest a.s.sistance each to the other socially and politically; not only because Ramsay and Bischoffsheimer had married sisters; but also, and chiefly, because big lawyers like to have big lawyers opposed to them in a big suit. For several reasons; for instance, ingenuity on each side prolongs the litigation and makes it intricate, and therefore highly expensive, and so multiplies the extent of the banquet.
"How so?" inquired Vanorden, put on the alert by the significant intonation of his friend.
"The whole Ranger-Whitney business is coming into court. Ranger, you know, pa.s.sed over the other day. He cut his family off with almost nothing--gave his money to Tec.u.mseh College. The son"s engaged us to attack the will."
"Where do _we_ come in?" asked Vanorden.
Dawson laughed and winked. "I guess your client, old Charley Whitney, won"t miss the chance to intervene in the suit and annex the whole business, in the scrimmage."
Vanorden nodded. "Oh, I see," said he. "I see! Yes, we"ll take a hand--sure!"
"There won"t be much in it for us," continued Dawson. "The boy"s got nothing, and between you and me, Len, the chances are against him. But you fellows and whoever gets the job of defending the college"s rights--"
Dawson opened his arms and made a humorous, huge, in-sweeping gesture.
"And," he added, "Whitney"s one of the trustees under the will. See?"
"Thanks, old man." Vanorden was laughing like a shrewd and mischievous but through-and-through good-natured boy. The two brilliant young leaders of the Illinois bar shook hands warmly.
And so it came about that Charles Whitney was soon indorsing a plan to cause, and to profit by, sly confusion--the plan of his able lawyers.
They had for years steered his hardy craft, now under the flag of peaceful commerce and now under the black banner of the buccaneer. The best of pilots, they had enabled him to clear many a shoal of bankruptcy, many a reef of indictment. They served well, for he paid well.
CHAPTER XIII
BUT IS RESCUED
By the time he reached Saint X our young "man of affairs" believed his conscience soundly converted to his adventure; and, as he drove toward the house, a final survey of his defenses and justifications satisfied him that they were impregnable. Nevertheless, as he descended from the station hack and entered the grounds of the place that in his heart of heart was all that the word "home" can contain, he felt strangely like a traitor and a sneak. He kept his manner of composed seriousness, but he reasoned in vain against those qualms of shame and panic. At the open front door he dared not lift his eyes lest he should be overwhelmed by the sight of that colossal figure, with a look in its face that would force him to see the truth about his thoughts and his acts. The house seemed deserted; on the veranda that opened out from the back parlor he found Dory Hargrave, reading. He no longer felt bitter toward Dory.
Thinking over the whole of the Ranger-Whitney relations and the sudden double break in them, he had begun to believe that perhaps Adelaide had had the good luck to make an extremely clever stroke when she shifted from Ross Whitney to Hargrave. Anyhow, Dory was a fine fellow, both in looks and in brains, with surprisingly good, yes, really amazing air and manner--considering his opportunities; he"d be an ornament to any family as soon as he had money enough properly to equip himself--which would be very soon, now that the great Dawson was about to open fire on the will and demolish it.
"Howdy," he accordingly said, with only a shade less than his old friendliness, and that due to embarra.s.sment, and not at all to ill feeling. "Where"s mother--and Del?"
"Your sister has taken your mother for a drive," replied Hargrave.
"Smoke?" said Arthur, extending his gold cigarette case, open.
Dory preferred his own brand of cigarettes; but, feeling that he ought to meet any advance of Arthur"s, he took one of the big, powerful Egyptians with "A.K." on it in blue monogram. They smoked in silence a moment or so, Arthur considering whether to practise on Dory the story of his proposed contest, to enable him to tell it in better form to his mother and sister. "I"ve been to Chicago to see about contesting the will," he began, deciding for the rehearsal.
"I supposed so," said Hargrave.
"Of course, for mother"s and Del"s sake I simply have to do it," he went on, much encouraged. "Anyone who knew father knows he must have been out of his mind when he made that will."
"I see your point of view," said Dory, embarra.s.sed. Then, with an effort he met Arthur"s eyes, but met them fearlessly. "You misunderstood me. I think a contest is a mistake."
Arthur flamed. "Naturally you defend your father," he sneered.
"Let us leave my father out of this," said Dory. His manner made it impossible for Arthur to persist. For Dory was one of those who have the look of "peace with honor" that keeps to bounds even the man crazed by anger.
"You can"t deny I have a legal right to make the contest," pursued Arthur.
"Undoubtedly."
"And a moral right, too," said Arthur, somewhat defiantly.
"Yes," a.s.sented Dory. The tone of the "yes"--or was it Arthur"s own self-respect--made him suspect Dory of thinking that a man might have the clearest legal and moral right and still not be able to get his honor"s consent. "But why discuss the matter, Arthur? You couldn"t be changed by anything I"d say."
"We will discuss it!" exclaimed Arthur furiously. "I see what your plan is. You know I"m bound to win; so you"ll try to influence Del and mother against me, and get the credit for taking high ground, and at the same time get the benefit of the breaking of the will. When the will"s broken, mother"ll have her third; you think you can stir up a quarrel between her and me, and she"ll leave all of her third to Del and you."
Arthur had started up threateningly. There showed at his eyes and mouth the ugliest of those alien pa.s.sions which his a.s.sociations had thrust into him, and which had been master ever since the reading of the will.
The signs were all for storm; but Dory sat impa.s.sive. He looked steadily at Arthur until Arthur could no longer withstand, but had to drop his eyes. Then he said: "I want you to think over what you have just said to me, Artie--especially your calculations on the death of your mother."
Arthur dropped back into his chair.
"Honestly, Artie, honestly," Dory went on, with the friendliest earnestness, "isn"t there something wrong about anything that causes the man you are by nature to think and feel and talk that way, when his father is not a week dead?"
Arthur forced a sneer, but without looking at Dory.
"Do you remember the day of the funeral?" Dory went on. "It had been announced in the papers that the burial would be private. As we drove out of the front gates there, I looked round--you remember it was raining.
There were uncovered farm wagons blocking the streets up and down. There were thousands of people standing in the rain with bared heads. And I saw tears thick as the rain drops streaming down faces of those who had known your father as boy and man, who had learned to know he was all that a human being should be."
Arthur turned away to hide his features from Dory.
"_That_ was your father, Artie. What if _he_ could have heard you a few minutes ago?"
"I don"t need to have anyone praise my father to me," said Arthur, trying to mask his feelings behind anger. "And what you say is no reason why I should let mother and Del and myself be cheated out of what he wanted us to have."
Dory left it to Arthur"s better self to discuss that point with him. "I know you"ll do what is right," said he sincerely. "You are more like your father than you suspect as yet, Artie. I should have said nothing to you if you hadn"t forced your confidence on me. What I"ve said is only what you"d say to me, were I in your place and you in mine--what you"ll think yourself a month from now. What lawyer advised you to undertake the contest?"
"Dawson of Mitch.e.l.l, Dawson, Vance & Bischoffsheimer. As good lawyers as there are in the country."
"I ought to tell you," said Dory, after brief hesitation, "that Judge Torrey calls them a quartette of unscrupulous scoundrels--says they"re regarded as successful only because success has sunk to mean supremacy in cheating and double-dealing. Would you mind telling me what terms they gave you--about fee and expenses?"
"A thousand down, and a note for five thousand," replied Arthur, compelled to speech by the misgivings Dory was raising within him in spite of himself.
"That is, as the first installment, they take about all the money in sight. Does that look as if they believed in the contest?"
At this Arthur remembered and understood Dawson"s remark, apparently casual, but really crucial, about the necessity of attaching Dr. Schulze.
Without Schulze, he had no case; and Dawson had told him so! What kind of a self-hypnotized fool was he, not to hear the plainest warnings? And without waiting to see Schulze, he had handed over his money!