CHAPTER XXV

COMPENSATION

Macon Hammerly offered no explanation at all as he led Ethel in the direction of High Street, quite in the opposite way from her usual walk at this hour of the evening. But he was pleasantly chatty just the same.

In spite of his gruffness and homely speech, if he liked the grain dealer could show a less prickly side to his character, and he always showed that glossed side to Ethel Clayton.

“Don’t you make no mistake, girl,” he now observed. “Your plan is going to have a fair trial, and we’ll have no such riot scene staged again as that to-night. Maybe I ain’t got all the political influence Grandon Fuller blows about; but I’ve got him about sewed up in a bag and he ain’t going to trouble you--he nor his hirelings--much more.

“He was trying to pull the wool over Barton’s eyes when Barton went away, I believe. I trusted to Frank’s natural horse sense to keep him out of any scrape with Grandon. But they do say he’s gone and fallen for that flibbertigibbet daughter of the Fullers. I expect those nurses have a great advantage over a man. Like enough every one of ’em’ll be married to some poor sinner before this war’s over,” and he grinned.

“Oh, Mr. Hammerly!” Ethel gasped. “Maybe I’d better go as a nurse,” she added, smiling.

“_You?_ Shucks! There ain’t no need for you to fish. The fellers will all be after you. I’m going to live ten years longer and dandle two or three of your babies on my knee. Come on! Here’s where we turn in.”

He led her into the law office of Alfred Gainor. The attorney had a visitor who rose hastily to go when Hammerly, with Ethel behind him, entered the private office.

“No, don’t run away, Grandon,” said the grain merchant in his very harshest tone. “I told Gainor to get you here for just this purpose.”

“What do you mean, Hammerly?” growled the other. “I have nothing to say to you at present.”

“No, I don’t expect you have. But I’ve got something to say to you, and you’d best listen.”

“If you’ve come to me to plead for my favor on this girl’s behalf----”

“Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!” reiterated Hammerly. “There won’t be no pleading on our side, I assure you, Grandon. And Ethel’s here because she’s got a vital interest in what’s going to be done.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You will,” observed Hammerly grimly.

“What do you expect to interest me in, man?” demanded Grandon Fuller with a less ruffled demeanor.

“I’m going to interest you in two or three things, Grandon,” said the old man composedly, while the lawyer looked on as though he quite understood. “I’m going to interest you first of all in the specification sheet of the Kimberly Binding Company order. And then I’m going to link that up with a much more important paper that you ain’t seen for ten years, but that’s been on file here all that time since it was probated and recorded. I mean Israel Diller’s will.”

At this statement Grandon Fuller leaped to his feet and advanced upon the old grain merchant with inflamed countenance.

“What do you mean, you hoary-headed old scoundrel?” he shouted. “Do you mean to tell me----”

He halted, licked his thick lips, and his flabby pomposity began to shrink. Hammerly nodded.

“That’s it. Give a calf rope enough and it’ll hang itself. I could sit here and bandy words with you long enough to make you give yourself clean away. For you ain’t a very brainy villain. Otherwise you wouldn’t have used a trick the second time that served you once--and that you had got away with, it seemed, without raising suspicion.”

“I don’t understand you,” snarled Fuller. “What are you talking about anyway?”

“I’m talking about forgery, Grandon--forgery and substitution. The chemists and handwriting experts are not alone able to swear to changes made on that Kimberly schedule; they will swear to changes made in the same way--and by the same hand--in Israel Diller’s will!

“Sit down, Grandon! Don’t fall down,” advised Hammerly. “Mr. Mestinger, who drew Israel’s will, being dead, you substitute your wife’s name for that of Lorreta Clayton’s all through that instrument and made Niece Mehitable instead of Niece Lorreta, the principal legatee under the will.

“I always had suspicions, but no proof. Not till Ethel, here, showed me that Kimberly company schedule and pointed out what that boy, Benway Chase, first saw in it.

“You’re caught, Grandon! You’re caught just as hard and fast as I caught Boots Skinner the other night setting hooks in the creek against the law. I’m going to let Boots go this time, for he ain’t an all around bad boy. Boots’ testimony is all I needed to link up your principal henchman with your blackguarding of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Jim Mayberry’s a proved scoundrel as far back as that Bogata Company matter, and I’m going to run him out of town.

“What I do with you, Grandon, depends entirely on how much restitution you are willing to make to the Widow Clayton and her daughter here. If we go to law about this it will cost a lot of money--and a lot of scandal. You’ve made a heap of money one way and another since you got those shares of the Hapwood-Diller Company that was meant for Mrs. Clayton. I’ll give you a chance.

“You’ll give those shares your wife got from the Israel Diller estate to Mrs. Clayton, with dividends and accrued interest to date. You’ll sell all your other holdings of the corporation’s shares to me, _and at the low price which you’ve hammered them down to_!”

“W--What! Never!” groaned Grandon Fuller.

“That will automatically put you out of the Hapwood-Diller Company’s affairs,” went on Macon Hammerly, not heeding the interruption. “And I guess that will help some; eh, Ethel?” he continued, turning to the much interested girl.

“Oh, is it true? Did he tamper with that will?” cried the girl.

“He did.”

“It’s false! I never----”

“Don’t try to deny it, Grandon. It’s true.” The old grain merchant strode forward and towered sternly over the other man. “Come, what is it to be, a peaceful settlement or war?”

“Gi--give me time to--to think.”

“Time to play another trick, you mean. No, you’ve got to decide now, at once, right here.”

“You--you are hard. I can explain----”

“No explanation is necessary. I’ve got you just where I want you. Will you settle or not?”

Grandon Fuller arose to his feet. He was panting hard.

“I won’t do it!” he began and then he shrank back before the steady gaze of Hammerly and Ethel. “I--I--” He suddenly dropped into his seat, his face a stricken gray. “Well, have your own way,” he mumbled. “You’ve got me cornered.”