An Officer and a Lady by Rex Stout Read Free Book Online Page B

handed to Devlin. These lawyers is the worst kind of grafters.
    “I told Devlin I didn’t want any Pauline natives to know about mine and Abe’s intimate pertinacities, and I waits in Ironton for a settlement. As soon as he got my fifty he wrote off a long letter to Jetmore which he let me read to correct the sentiments.
    “It would a’ been cheaper for me to buy that railroad between Ironton and Horton. For eleven days I kept up a to and fro movement worse than a Mount Vernon commuter. It got so the trains wouldn’t start till they saw me comin’. In one day I was Abe three times and Leo twice.
    “Jetmore and Devlin kept burnin’ up the mails with lies and criminalities, me a readin’ everything so as to preserve my interests. I was yellin’ for more on one end and less on the other till the fruit got all ripe and just ready for pickin’. Bendy, it was shameful easy, I used to fall asleep in Devlin’s office from sheer angwee.
    “It was last Thursday when I got to Devlin’s sanctum, just in time to see him puttin’ on his coat to go to lunch with the stenographer.
    “ ‘Hello, Delman,’ says he, ‘I’ll see you in about half an hour. Here’s a letter from Jetmore. Make yourself at home till I get back.’
    “When he’d gone I read the letter over just to make sure there wasn’t no changes since I saw it the night before in Jetmore’s office. It said that Abe had decided to accept Leo’s offer of twelve hundred dollars cash, provided it was paid within three days.
    “I goes to the stenographer’s desk, picks out a nice printed letterhead, and writes on it as follows:
    March 21, 1912
    Mr. David Jetmore,
    Horton, N. J.
    Dear Sir,
    As per advice contained in your favor of the 20th inst., I am enclosing herewith check for twelve hundred dollars in full payment of the claim of Abe Delman against Leo Delman.
    I shall be pleased to have you acknowledge receipt of same.
    Yours very truly,
    “I had already practiced Devlin’s hand till I was sick of it, and I signed that letter so that Devlin himself couldn’t a’ told the difference. Then I pulls out a blank check, makes it to the order of Devlin for twelve hundred dollars and signs it ‘Leo Delman’ and endorses Devlin’s name on the back.
    “Of course, I could have done some of this work in my own boodwar, but I wanted to use Devlin’s typewriter, and besides, I had a feeling it would be more gentlemanlike to do everything right there in the office. It somehow seemed natural and right to sign a man’s name on his own desk with his own pen and ink.
    “When Devlin come back I had the letter all ready to mail stowed away in my pocket.
    “ ‘Have you got that twelve hundred?’ says he.
    “ ‘No,’ says I, ‘but I’ll get it in three days or bust.’
    “ ‘You’d better,’ says he, ‘for when Jetmore says three days he don’t mean four.’
    “I mailed the letter and check in Ironton that afternoon, and next day—that was Friday—I goes over to Horton on the very first train, and pedestrinates into Jetmore’s office on the stroke of ten.
    “Jetmore met me cordial like a mule that’s just found something to kick. He’d smelled my money.
    “ ‘Did you get it?’ says I.
    “He pulled out the check I’d mailed in Ironton the day before. I looked at it over his shoulder, him holdin’ on with both hands.
    “ ‘I guess about fifty of that belongs to you,’ says I.
    “ ‘Fifty!’ says he. ‘Fifty!’
    “ ‘No,’ says I, ‘I only said it once.’
    “That’s what comes of gettin’ into the clutches of one of them grafters, Bendy. They’ll do you every time. But I let it go at a hundred to preserve my own interests. I couldn’t afford no argument.
    “ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘give me the check.’
    “ ‘Give me my hundred,’ says he.
    “ ‘I ain’t got it,’ says I.
    “ ‘Then we’ll cash the check,’ says he, and puts on his coat and hat.
    “Bendy, ain’t that pitiful? Ain’t it pitiful? It was comin’