“Why—no—but I am very busy——”
“Then put someone else on the job. I assume that the county is not averse to raking in a tidy little sum in a hurry.”
“Really——”
Gregory leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly.
“You had a telephone from Mr. John Robinson this morning.”
This time the man started visibly, but he made an effort to control himself. “I have just come in——”
“He telephoned to you last night, did he not? What did he offer you to permit him to pay those taxes today?”
“I will not be insulted, sir.” The man’s voice was almost a scream. He heartily wished he had been in training a few years longer, a graduate of the famous Heinze-Amalgamated orgy of corruption, or of the Clark-Daly epoch, when nearly every man in office had been bribed or hoped to be. “I never heard of Mr. Robinson!”
“Of course he reminded you that as the taxes are long delinquent the county has the right to put the property up at public auction, and that in any case Mrs. Blake would hardly be given the usual year in which to redeem it. But why auction when the money is ready to be paid over at once? How much did he offer you?”
“I repeat——”