"We must go back, then, Avery, to the quite serious emergency to which I am indebted for your faithful service. It is fairly difficult now for one contemplating the reverence and regard in which 'big' men are held by the public in these days of business reconstruction to recall the attitude of only a few years ago. However, it is certainly true that five years ago the American people appeared perfectly convinced that the only way to win true happiness and perpetuate prosperity was to accuse, condemn and jail for life—if execution were not legal—the heads of the important groups of industrial properties. Just at that time, one of these men—one of the most efficient but also, perhaps, the one personally most obnoxious or unpopular—committed one of his gravest indiscretions. It concerned the private use of deposits in national banks; it was a federal offense of the most patent and provable kind. He was indicted. Considering the temper of any possible jury at that time, there was absolutely no alternative but to believe that the man under indictment must spend many succeeding years, if not the rest of his life, in the Federal penitentiary at Atlanta or Leavenworth.
"Now, not only the man himself but his closest associates contemplated this certainty with dismay. The man was in complete control of a group of the most valuable and prosperous properties in America. Before his gaining control, the properties had been almost ruined by differences between the minor men who tried to run them; only the calling of Matthew Latron into control saved those men from themselves; they required him to govern them; his taking away would bring chaos and ruin among them again. They knew that. There were a number of important people, therefore, who held hope against hope that Latron would not be confined in a prison cell. Just before he must go to trial, Latron himself became convinced that he faced confinement for the rest of his life; then fate effectively intervened to end all his troubles. His body, charred and almost consumed by flames—but nevertheless the identified body of Matthew Latron—was found in the smoking ruins of his shooting lodge which burned to the ground two days before his trial. I have stated correctly these particulars, have I not, Avery?"
"Yes." Avery was no longer sitting on the arm of the chair; he had slipped into the seat—he was hunched in the seat watching the blind man with growing conviction and fear.
"There were, of course," Santoine went on, "many of the violent and passion-inflamed who carped at this timely intervention of fate and criticised the accident which delivered Latron at this time. But these were silenced when Latron's death was shown to have been, not accident, but murder. A young man was shown to have followed Latron to the shooting lodge; a witness appeared who had seen this young man shoot Latron; a second witness had seen him set fire to the lodge. The young man—Hugh Overton—was put on trial for his life. I, myself, as a witness at the trial, supplied the motive for the crime; for, though I had never met Overton, I knew that he had lost the whole of a large fortune through investments recommended to him by Latron. Overton was convicted, sentenced to death; he escaped before the sentence was carried out—became a fugitive without a name, who if he ever reappeared would be handed over for execution. For the evidence had been perfect—complete; he had shot Latron purely for revenge, killed him in the most despicable manner. For there was no doubt Latron was dead, was there, Avery?"
Santoine waited for reply.
"What?" Avery said huskily.
"I say there was no doubt Latron was dead?"
"None."
"That was the time you came into my employ, Avery, recommended to me by one of the men who had been closest to Latron. I was not connected with the Latron properties except as an adviser; but many papers relating to them must go inevitably through my hands. I was rather on the inside in all that concerned those properties. But I could not myself see the papers; I was blind; therefore, I had to have others serve as eyes for me. And from the first, Avery, you served as my eyes in connection with all papers relating to the Latron properties. If anything ever appeared in those papers which might have led me to suspect that any injustice had been done in the punishment of Latron's murderer, it could reach me only through you. Nothing of that sort ever did reach me, Avery. You must have made quite a good thing out of it."
"What?"