Craig leaned forward, his arm on the little inlaid desk beside him. "Let me finish," he said with deliberate meaning. "The board, accepting that decision with the keenest regret, desired to make your retirement the occasion for showing in a tangible way its appreciation of your long and faithful service. A seat on the Supreme Bench being vacant, the Directorate proposed, unless your taste pointed otherwise, to use such influence as it might possess, to gain for your name the consideration in that connection which it deserved."
A look of surprise had crossed the Judge's face as he began. A sensitive flush swept it as he ended. "If you imply that my seat was offered me, Mr. Craig, even tentatively, at that time, or in that connection, you are in error!"
Craig's sneer was open now. There was no more pretence. "If not in so many words, in effect! Pshaw! Do you mean to pretend you would have had that appointment if the Trust hadn't backed you for it? It owned the state bag and baggage then, as it does now—and as it will continue to do! It put you on the Bench and it has kept you there, and you know it!"
The Judge was on his feet now, his flush faded to pallor. He deigned no answer to the flung assertion. "What is your object in coming to me to say this?" His voice was deep and resonant.
"Just this!" Craig lifted his arm, his big fist clenched, his eyes narrowed. "You were the Trust's counsel and confident for twenty years—till it put you where you are now! Do you think it did that for nothing? It made you, Beverly Allen! And now it has reason to believe that you intend to knife it in the back—to drag the ermine it put on your shoulders into an incendiary hue-and-cry started by demagogues who aim to destroy a great industry!"
"What do you mean, sir?" The Judge's tone was icy.
"I mean the Welles-Scott decision!" Craig said in a low, deadly voice. "That"—his clenched hand smote the light desk at his elbow with a savage blow—"must be ours!"
For an instant there was blank silence. The Judge stood aghast, his very speech frozen with indignation. To him his judicial calling had an element that was almost sacred. This man—to whom he had given the hand of friendship, who had the entrée into the exclusive circles of southern gentility—this man assumed to lay coarse fingers upon his vestment of office, to question his integrity as a Judge! He dared to believe him, Beverly Allen, cheaply venal—a puppet, whose legal rulings were at the beck and call of corporate influence! The room seemed suddenly stifling hot. He turned to the window, flung the curtains wide and drew a gulping breath of the fresh air.
He had not seen Craig's sudden start. For at the smashing blow of his fist on the fragile Italian desk, a curious thing had happened. Its catch loosened by the jar, a tiny carven panel had fallen with a little click, and a thin sheaf of yellowed letters had dropped and spread fan-wise beside his hand. The backs of the envelopes were uppermost, and across the top one was written in a dim, twirly hand and faded ink, the initials B.A.
A thought darted like cold lightning through Craig's brain. "B.A."—Beverly Allen! Whose were those old letters? The initials were in a woman's hand. What if they held a clue to the old story Treadwell, his attorney, had spoken of? A quick instinct inspired him. His hand closed over them quickly—went to his breast—as the Judge turned from the window.