The Scarlet Letters by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page A

of Appeals in Albany prompted gossip that the governor might appoint Ambrose to the seat, he discussed the pros and cons of his accepting it with Rod over lunch at the Downtown Association.
    His son-in-law did not conceal his concern. "But what would happen to the firm?" he protested.
    "Nothing. It would get along just fine. Nobody's indispensable. And there's a side of me that would like to philosophize about law for a bit. As judges can."
    "How many judges do?"
    "Well, call me Holmes, then!" Ambrose exclaimed with irritation. "Call me Cardozo! Can't there be anything in my life but the firm? Must I go to my grave having done nothing but represent more or less flawed characters? I want a moment of truth. Shining truth!"
    Rod's retort was almost fierce. "But that's precisely what you have! You've forged this great law firm into your tool. Or rather into your shining sword! You say you're not indispensable to it, but I claim you are. There's not another firm in town with our unity, our spirit, and you are what holds the whole thing together. Every one of your partners feels the firm not only as his place of business, but as his club, his school, perhaps even his church!"
    Ambrose at this chose to conclude the discussion, and anyway, as it turned out, the governor did not appoint him. But if he had, would Ambrose have turned it down? And would he have been doing it under the sway of Rod's so flattering estimate of his value to the firm? Wasn't it really time for him to quit? Was it really good for any partnership to be so dominated by a single member? Oh yes, he tried to kid himself that Vollard Kaye was as democratic as a Greek city-state, but didn't he
know
that he was in fact a despot, however benevolent? And didn't he like it? Too much? And wasn't his present nervousness possible evidence of a hidden fear that Rod Jessup was grooming himself for the successorship but thought the time was not yet quite ripe?
    And then, only a few months before the dreadful event of the flaunted adultery, came the first serious row in Ambrose's halcyon relationship with his son-in-law.
    One of the partners, exultantly, had just brought in an important new client, a large Canadian distilling corporation, and Ambrose, immediately before his row with Rod, had been in conference with some half dozen of the company's chief officers. He had been pleased with their reception and interested in some of the problems they faced with Uncle Sam, to one of which he had already flared a possible solution, and, finding Rod in his office when he returned from the conference chamber, he started at once to explain it. But his son-in-law held up an interrupting hand.
    "I'm sorry to say it, sir, but I don't think you can represent them."
    "You mean we have a conflict? What a shame."
    "Not a conflict, no. Though you could use our representing Deacon Brewers, a potential litigant with them, as an excuse for declining their retainer."
    Ambrose stared. "And why should I want to do that?"
    "Because they're crooks. Or at least used to be."
    "Used to be?"
    "Well, I don't suppose they could be criminally indicted today for what they did thirty years ago. And it hasn't been necessary for them to commit mayhem or murder since Prohibition was repealed."
    "You mean they were involved in bootlegging back in the twenties and thirties? Good heavens, man, who wasn't? What do you think we're running here on Wall Street? A reformatory?"
    "I'm not talking about just bootlegging. I'm talking about gang warfare and brutal murder." Rod had declined to sit down when Ambrose did; he loomed threateningly over the latter's desk and even struck its surface with his fist. "It so happens that I wrote my senior thesis at Yale on just that. I got absorbed in the subject and did a lot of personal research, including reading the record of several court cases. It may interest you to know that your new client was up to its ears in all kinds of suspected dirty work and was even—though I admit