His father nodded.
"It may not be so bad as it seems," he said, with the first hopeful note Rod had heard him utter. "Though I'm doubtful of quarreling with figures. Grove hasn't been dishonest. That's the only redeeming feature of the nasty mess. But his associates have. I didn't think it of them. But I have moral if not legal proof of their crookedness—cunning financial piracy on a considerable scale. I may be able to make 'em disgorge, and I may not. They've feathered their nests and left Grove, the poor fool, holding the empty sack. The intent is to throw the thing into a receiver's hands. But I'm prepared to checkmate that. There's to be a directors' meeting to-morrow at ten-thirty. I'd like you to go with me. You may find it illuminating. Suppose I pick you up on my way?"
"Why not drive out and have breakfast with us at eight or half-past?" Rod suggested.
"Better still. I'll do that, thanks."
He had never been a demonstrative man. But he shook hands at the door, and Rod's fingers were still tingling with the grip when he walked down the stairs.
As the wheels of the retreating taxi crunched the gravel on his driveway, Rod stood a moment with his foot on the first step. The night was clear, tinged with frost. Above the city roofs that curious lucence from a million lights dimmed the stars. And as his gaze embraced the down-town silhouette he marked for the first time from the house in which he lived the blazing sign of the Norquay Trust, as if it were something from which he could not escape,—and for a moment he was tempted to a childish shaking of his fist at that glowing emblem of a corroded and tottering edifice.
CHAPTER XXI
Rod followed his father along a strip of thick carpet laid over a floor tiled in precise geometric patterns, looking about him at the dukes and duchesses of the counting room administering their high estate of correspondence and ledgers. Delicately fingered typewriters and computing machines woke faint, staccato tappings in that lofty room. He passed a row of ground-glass partitioned cubicles, each gilt-lettered with the name of some petty satrap of higher degree than those without such privacy. There was a decorous stir, an air of activity, persons moving about from desk to desk, discreet consultation. If, as an institution, it was moribund, coma had not set in. Or perhaps the stir and bustle was but the accentuated flutter of a financial heart struggling to force impoverished blood through a body approaching dissolution. He smiled at the fancy.
The directors' room, specially fitted up for deliberate and august discussion, opened off a mezzanine floor overlooking the main body of the offices. Norquay senior led the way. They left their hats and coats in a cloak room. Without ceremony, Mr. Norquay pushed open a door and entered.