"There won't be any offer in about three minutes," Cummings quietly reminded them. "If you'd asked my opinion--and giving you opinions is what you pay me a salary for--I'd have said close with him while you can."
Whipple gave me an agonized glance. I nodded affirmatively. He put the question to vote in a breath; the ayes had it, old Dykeman shouting after them in an angry squeak.
"No! No!" and adding as he glared about him, "I'd like to be able to look a newspaper in the face; but never again! Never again!"
I made my way over to Gilbert and stood in front of him.
"You've bought something, boy," I said. "If you mean to keep me on as your detective, you can assure these people that I'll do my darndest to give information to the police and keep it out of the papers. What's happened here won't get any further than this room--through me."
"You're hired, Jerry Boyne." Gilbert slapped me on the back affectionately. After all, he hadn't changed so much in his four years over there; I began to see more than traces of the enthusiastic youngster to whom I used to spin detective yarns in the grill at the St. Francis or on the rocks by the Cliff House. "Sure, we'll keep it out of the papers. Suits me. I'd rather not pose as the fool soon parted from his money."
The remark was apropos; Knapp had feverishly beckoned the lawyer over to a little side desk; they were down at it, the light snapped on, writing, trying to frame up an agreement that would hold water. One by one the others went and looked on nervously as they worked; by the time they'd finished something, everybody'd seen it but Worth; and when it was finally put in his hands, all he seemed to notice was the one point of the time they'd set for payment.
"It'll be quite some stunt to get the amount together by ten o'clock Monday," he said slowly. "There are securities to be converted--"
He paused, and looked up on a queer hush.
"Securities?" croaked Dykeman. "To be converted--? Oh!"
"Yes," in some surprise. "Or would the bank prefer to have them turned over in their present form?"
Again a strained moment, broken by Whipple's nervous,
"Maybe that would be better," and a quickly suppressed chuckle from Cummings.
The agreement was in duplicate. It gave Worth Gilbert complete ownership of a described sole-leather suitcase and its listed contents, and, as he had demanded, it bound him to nothing save the payment. Cummings said frankly that the transaction was illegal from end to end, and that any assurance as to the bank's ceasing to pursue Clayte would amount to compounding a felony. Yet we all signed solemnly, the lawyer and I as witnesses. A financier's idea of indecency is something about money which hasn't formerly been done. The directors got sorer and sorer as Worth Gilbert's cheerfulness increased.