I was startled by this sudden and sinister accusation and sat for some time with my head bent over the papers, forgetting his presence, trying to get at the meaning of the documents. Was there any other explanation than that which Mr. Rogers had given me with such conviction? Looking up suddenly for the first time in my experience with Mr. Rogers, I caught him looking at me with narrowed and cunning eyes. I took alarm on the instant.
“We are not the only ones, you see, Miss Tarbell.”
“If this means what it seems to mean you are not. But I shall have to study these documents, Mr. Rogers; I shall have to consult a lawyer about the practice common in such cases.”
“That will be all right,” he said.
He was more exultant than I had ever found him. “I knew that paper would come in well some day. To get it I consented to our people buying the Buffalo refinery—we did not want it, but I wanted to get the receiver’s reports and know just what had been done with the money we had paid them.”
On the whole I had never seen him better pleased with himself than he was at that moment. His satisfaction was so great that for the first time in our acquaintance he gave me a little lecture for a caustic remark I had made. “That is not a Christian remark,” he said. I contended that it was a perfect expression of my notion of a Christian.
“You ought to go to church more frequently,” he said. “Why don’t you come and hear my pastor, Dr. Savage?”
We parted on good terms after a discussion of our religious views and churchgoing practices, and he gave me a cordial invitation to come back, which I agreed to do as soon as I had studied the new angle in the Buffalo case.
Aided by a disinterested and fair-minded lawyer, I gave a thorough study to the documents; but do my best I could not convince myself that Mr. Rogers’ contention was sound. It is not an unusual thing for lawyers to take cases they believe in, knowing that their compensation depends on their winning. Many clients with just cases would be deprived of counsel if they had to insure a fixed compensation, for not infrequently, as in the Buffalo case, all that a client has is involved in a suit. The practice is so common among reputable lawyers that it certainly cannot be regarded as a proof of a conspiracy, unless there is a reason to suppose that they have taken a case of whose merits they themselves are suspicious. There was no evidence that the counsel of the independent concern were not convinced from the first that they had a strong case. Their claims were large; but lawyers are not proverbial for the modesty of their charges and, besides, exorbitant charges can hardly be construed as a proof of conspiracy.
When I finally had written out my conclusion I sent a copy of it to Mr. Rogers, saying I should be glad to talk it over with him if he wished. He did wish—wrote me that he had new material to present. But before the date set for the meeting an article in our series was published which broke off our friendly relations.