“I believe that is correct. Well, my customer, whose name is Jennings, has bought some stock in what is known as the Patoka Land and Improvement Company, of which Balcomb is treasurer and one thing and another. There’s a lawyer up there in his building—”
“Van Cleve,” suggested Leighton.
“That’s the chap. His eyes look like a bowl of clam broth. He’s the attorney for the company. The reason he holds the job is not difficult to determine. His father is a banker down here on the river somewhere and is well-to-do. Balcomb, I understand, is teaching Van Cleve how things are done in large cities.”
“He’s a competent teacher. Go on.”
“Yes; but graduate work is a little stiff for a beginner.”
“We needn’t take that up now. Where do I come in?”
“Somewhat as follows: A client of your office is also in the game to a certain extent. I refer to Ezra Dameron, that genial, warm-hearted, impulsive old fossil. They tell me on the quiet that he’s been monkeying with options. He’s selling this company the old Roger Merriam property south of town at half its value and he’s given them an option on his strip of land out here on the creek. You know Balcomb’s scheme. He’s going to build an ideal flat out here at the edge of town,—fountains playing everywhere, roof gardens, native forest trees,—it’s a delightful prospect. Dameron’s corner is a great place for it. It makes no difference whether the scheme is practicable or not. Balcomb makes it sound awfully good. It’s been written up in the newspapers most seductively. It’s so good that only the elect can get in.”
“I know Balcomb and his habits of thought. How much is he paying Dameron for that property?”
“Balcomb has an option at sixty thousand. Jennings told me that the stock-holders had already paid in most of their money so that the purchase could be made at once. The price is amazingly low. He must be hard up. Balcomb tells Jennings and the rest of them that he bought those lots merely to be able to get that creek strip; but it’s a bargain and they’ll make a good thing out of the lots. But what’s the matter with Ezra? I thought perhaps Carr’s relations with Dameron were such that this information would interest you. The property is part of the Margaret Dameron trusteeship and I hope Miss Dameron will get all she’s entitled to. I believe that’s the most curious will that was ever probated in our county,” Copeland continued, with the exaggerated gravity with which he talked of legal matters. “But that woman certainly had an extraordinary faith in her husband. Nobody else in this township would trust Ezra Dameron round the corner with a hot base-burner. But Mrs. Dameron was as proud as Lucifer. She was a Merriam and she must have thought that by leaving her property to Ezra in trust for their daughter she would put a corner-stone under his honor. But the trusteeship expires on the first of October and the old man is selling property at a ridiculous figure to a nasty little crook. It looks rather queer, doesn’t it?”
“Dameron must have had something of his own; he had his wife’s property to play with and if he hasn’t done well with it it’s his own fault. I’m sorry that he has fallen into Balcomb’s hands.”