"Thank you. Good-by. I will call this evening."
"Good-by, Mr. Duncan."
My first impression as I hung up the receiver was a thrill at being thus thrust into the centre of what appeared to be one of the biggest cases which had transpired in years. My second was a pleasurable recognition of the crisp, direct, clear, and ample statement of the matter which the old real estate man had made. It had all been done in two minutes or less. It is not often that we lawyers encounter people outside of our own and the newspaper profession who can state anything so concisely and not lose any value in it.
At this moment, Betts, my partner, and the stenographer came in, so I hurried over to the Municipal Bank.
Business was just beginning for the day. I could see at a glance over the men behind the brass screens that they as a whole did not as yet know that the bank was a loser by a million. The cashier's door was open, and he was just smoothing out his morning mail in the calmest of manners. No one looked up as I entered; that showed normal state of mind among the clerks.
I asked for Mr. George Rhodes, and a tall, broad shouldered, clean-cut young chap came forward from a desk in the extreme rear of the place and took my card through the bars. Even with the slight view I could get of his face, I perceived he was pale and haggard. He opened a side door and admitted me to the anteroom of the directors' chamber. I told him I had come in his interest, retained by Mr. Anderson, and stated my client's reason for sending me, namely, to prevent his daughter's name from being mentioned in the matter at any or all times, and asked the young man what I could do for him.
He had been sitting running his thumb-nail precisely along the edge of my card, and now he looked up and said, in a dull, expressionless way:
"Really, Mr. Duncan, I have thought the matter over carefully, and there is nothing to do."
He seemed so numbed and hopeless that I was amused.
"You surprise me, Mr. Rhodes," I said. "Surely a thing like this can not in itself shut off any action. In the first place, give me the facts. We will see what can be done."