"You're hired, Jerry Boyne." Gilbert slapped me on the back affectionately. After all, he hadn't changed so much in his four years over there; I began to see more than traces of the enthusiastic youngster to whom I used to spin detective yarns in the grill at the St. Francis or on the rocks by the Cliff House. "Sure, we'll keep it out of the papers. Suits me. I'd rather not pose as the fool soon parted from his money."
The remark was apropos; Knapp had feverishly beckoned the lawyer over to a little side desk; they were down at it, the light snapped on, writing, trying to frame up an agreement that would hold water. One by one the others went and looked on nervously as they worked; by the time they'd finished something, everybody'd seen it but Worth; and when it was finally put in his hands, all he seemed to notice was the one point of the time they'd set for payment.
"It'll be quite some stunt to get the amount together by ten o'clock Monday," he said slowly. "There are securities to be converted—"
He paused, and looked up on a queer hush.
"Securities?" croaked Dykeman. "To be converted—? Oh!"
"Yes," in some surprise. "Or would the bank prefer to have them turned over in their present form?"
Again a strained moment, broken by Whipple's nervous,
"Maybe that would be better," and a quickly suppressed chuckle from Cummings.
The agreement was in duplicate. It gave Worth Gilbert complete ownership of a described sole-leather suitcase and its listed contents, and, as he had demanded, it bound him to nothing save the payment. Cummings said frankly that the transaction was illegal from end to end, and that any assurance as to the bank's ceasing to pursue Clayte would amount to compounding a felony. Yet we all signed solemnly, the lawyer and I as witnesses. A financier's idea of indecency is something about money which hasn't formerly been done. The directors got sorer and sorer as Worth Gilbert's cheerfulness increased.
"Acts as though it were a damn' crap game," I heard Dykeman muttering to Sillsbee, who came back vacuously.