There were troubles enough to need the very highest-priced lawyers. Accountants were put to work on the books of J. Arnold Ross, and on the statements rendered by his partner, and in a few days there began to emerge out of the tangle one colossal fact: over and above all the money that Dad had put into new business ventures with Verne and others, above all the cash which he had handled through his bank, there was more than ten million dollars’ worth of stocks and bonds which had disappeared without a trace. Verne declared that these securities had been taken by Dad, and used by him for purposes unknown; and Bertie declared that was idiocy, and that Vernon Roscoe was the biggest thief in all history. Having access to Dad’s safe deposit box, he had simply helped himself to the contents. And with rage Bertie turned upon her brother, asserting that he was to blame—Verne knew that Bunny would use his money to try to overturn society, and so it was only common sense to keep him down.
Nor could Bunny deny that this sounded reasonable. It was easy to imagine Verne saying to himself that Bunny was a social danger, and Bertie a social waster, and the widow a poor half-wit, while he, Verne, was a capable business man, who would use those securities for the proper purpose—to bring more oil out of the ground. Learning of Dad’s death, Verne had quietly transferred the securities from Dad’s strong box to his own, before the state inheritance tax commissioner came along to make his records! Verne wouldn’t consider that stealing, but simply common sense—the same as taking the naval reserves away from a government which hadn’t intelligence enough to develop them.
Now Bertie wanted to start a law-suit against her father’s partner, and put him on the stand and make him tell everything about his affairs; and Bunny, with the help of the lawyers, had to argue with her, and bear the brunt of her rage. So far, Verne had been careful to put nothing into writing; and when he took the stand, he would have a story fixed up to leave them helpless. He could say that Dad had given him the securities, and how could they disprove it? He could say that Dad had taken the securities, unknown to his partner, and lost the money on the stock market—how could they disprove that? Even if they traced the sales of Dad’s securities through Verne’s brokers, they would gain nothing, because Verne could say that he had turned over the money to Dad, or that he had been authorized to invest it, and had lost it—a hundred different tales he could invent! “Then we’ve simply got to take what that scoundrel allows us!” cried Bertie; and the lawyers agreed that was the situation. Being themselves on a percentage basis, their advice was sincere!
Then an incident that multiplied the bitterness between Bertie and her brother. Bunny went to the storage warehouse where his belongings had been put away, and in an atlas that his father had occasionally consulted he came upon five liberty bonds for ten thousand dollars each. It was some money Dad had been keeping handy—possibly to bribe the officers in case he should be caught; anyhow, here it was, and Bunny would have been free to consider it a part of the million which Dad had tried to give him in Paris. But he haughtily decided that he would not join in plundering the estate; he would turn the bonds in, to be counted as part of the assets.
But he made the mistake of telling Bertie about it—and oh, what a riot! The imbecile, to make Alyse and her lawyers a present of twenty-five thousand dollars! Instead of quietly dividing with his sister, and holding his mouth! That twenty-five thousand became to Bertie a thing of more importance than all the millions that Verne had got away with; these bonds were something tangible—or almost tangible—until Bunny took them out of her reach, and made them a present to those greedy vultures! And right when both of them needed cash, and were having to go to one of their father’s bankers to borrow money on the basis of their claims to the estate.
Bertie raved and stormed, and Bunny, to get it over with, took the bonds to the bank and turned them in; and after that Bertie never forgave him, she would mention his imbecility every time they were alone. She was making herself ill with all this hatred and fuming; she would sit up half the night poring over figures, and then she couldn’t sleep for excitement. Like all young society ladies, she set much store by the freshness of her skin and its freedom from wrinkles; but now she was throwing away her charms, and making herself pale and haggard. In after years she would be going to beauty specialists and having the corners of her mouth lifted, and the skin of her face treated with chemicals and peeled off—because now she could not control her fury of disappointment, that she was to get only a paltry one or two million, instead of the glorious ten or fifteen million she had been confident of some day possessing.
V
Rachel had published a brief article about Bunny’s return from abroad, quoting him as saying that he intended to use his inheritance for the benefit of the movement. And this statement had attracted the attention of a bright young newspaper woman, who had written a facetious article:
MILLIONAIRE RED TO SAVE SOCIETY
And now it appeared that there were a great many people who had ideas as to how to save society, and they all wanted to see Bunny, and waited for him in the lobby of his hotel. One had a sure cure for cancer, and another a perpetual motion machine actually working; one wanted to raise bullfrogs for their legs, and another to raise skunks for their skins. There were dozens who wanted to prevent the next war, and several who wanted to start colonies; there were many with different ways of bringing about Socialism, and several great poets and philosophers with manuscripts, and one to whom God had revealed Himself—the bearer of this message was six-feet-four and broad in proportion, and he towered over Bunny and whispered in an awe-stricken voice that the Words which God had spoken had been set down and locked in a safe, and no human eye ever had beheld them, or ever would. Several others wrote that they were not able to call because they were unjustly confined to asylums, but if Bunny would get them out they would deliver their messages to the world through him.