Hard as Nails

Chapter Five Compromise

Gilbert Best shoved his way through the door marked Frank C. Dillon — Attorney At Law — Office Hours 10:00 to 12:00 — 2:00 to 4:30 — Entrance. Norma Pelton’s teeth flashed in a smile.

“How’s the girl?” asked Best.

“Fine as silk, Gil. What’s the good word?”

“Oh, so-so. What’s Dillon doing? Is he busy?”

“He’s been having a lot of telephone calls from Wigmore. He’s virtually got that case compromised.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s sore at you.”

“Why?”

“He thinks that you got him when he was pretty low and stuck him for a bunch of money to handle a case that was a cinch anyway.”

“Yeah,” Best said. “Tell him that I’m going in.”

“You mean that you’re here in the office?”

“No, that I’m going in.”

“He won’t like that.”

“You mean he’d like to keep me waiting for ten or fifteen minutes.”

The eyes twinkled. “Well, I didn’t say exactly that.”

Best snorted. “Tell him,” he said, “that I’m on my way in.”

He strode across the office, pushed open the door marked, Private, crossed the law library and heard Dillon’s voice registering protest in the telephone transmitter before he was halfway across the office.

Best timed his entrance to the private office to coincide with the banging of the receiver back on its hook.

“You’ve got a crust, busting in on me when I’m busy,” said Dillon.

“Oh, were you busy?”

“Of course I’m busy. I’m busy trying to make up some of that money you swindled me out of.”

“Meaning what?” asked Best, his eyes cold.

“Meaning that I had a cinch case against the Airline Stageways, and you went ahead and threw a scare into me and made me put up a lot of money to pay you for doing a bunch of stuff that was unnecessary. And, worse than that, you made me kick through to support that Hanley woman in idleness.”

“She’s got a cough,” Best said. “She should go down to Arizona or some place for awhile.”

“Well, I’ve got a compromise through for her. She can go to Arizona or anyplace.”

“Oh, you’ve got a compromise through?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Well,” said Dillon, “I don’t know as it’s any of your particular affair, because I haven’t seen that you’ve done anything very wonderful on the case, but, just between us, it’s a compromise of twenty thousand dollars.”

“How much is your fee?” asked the detective.

“That,” said Dillon in tones of positive finality, “is none of your damn business.”

Best grinned, and said: “When you wanted me in on the case, you mentioned you had lost ten thousand dollars on a compromise that was figured at twenty thousand. That leads me to believe you’ve got her sewed up for a fifty-percent fee.”

“What if I have?” Dillon demanded. “Best, I’m getting damn tired of the way you do things. You could be a good detective if you’d follow instructions and confine yourself to doing the things you’re told to do. But you take in too much territory. You want to tell me how I am going to try my cases, how I am going to deal with my clients. You want to bust in here unannounced. You want to be the big shot in this business, and you can’t make it stick.”

“Oh, can’t I?”

“No, you can’t.”

“And you’ve compromised for twenty thousand?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you get my message telling you not to?”

“It happens,” said the lawyer with paunchy dignity, “that I am responsible to my clients for handling matters to their satisfaction and protecting their interests. When I start taking orders from a private detective, I want to know it.”

“So you didn’t think you needed me?”

“No, I didn’t”

“Don’t think I did you any good?”

“Not a damn bit. I know you didn’t. Wigmore said he had intended to compromise all along for twenty thousand, but that the matter had slipped his mind because the file had been misplaced in his office. He said he was satisfied there was a real injury there and that he wanted my client to have sufficient money to restore her to health.”

The detective sighed. “Just when I thought,” he said, “I was doing you some good.”

“You weren’t,” Dillon said. “You should pay me back the money that I advanced to you.”

Best looked at the floor with a woebegone expression.

Dillon elaborated upon the idea he had expressed and warmed to his task as he grew more indignant

“You stuck me for a bunch of money for my client and for seven hundred and fifty dollars as a retainer for your services. It was out of all reason. You didn’t do a thing for the money. I probably could have you jailed for obtaining money under false representations. As a detective, you’re a frost — a pain in the neck. You had some luck in a couple of cases you handled for me, and like a fool, I thought it was due to your ability. The amount of money you stuck me on this thing was simply outrageous, and I’m telling you frankly, Best, I want it hack.”

“Aw, gee, you wouldn’t make trouble for me over a lousy seven hundred and fifty bucks, would you?”

“It isn’t the seven hundred and fifty dollars so much, as it is the principle of the thing,” Dillon declared. “I want that money back.”

Best hesitated, pulled out his wallet. “It will leave me cleaned,” he said.

Dillon laughed sarcastically. “Just as I thought,” he said. “You pocketed the whole money and haven’t even spent a cent of it on expenses.”

Best said nothing, counted out seven hundred and fifty dollars in cash from his wallet, then opened the wallet to show the lawyer the interior.

“Just three one-dollar bills left,” he said.

Dillon held out his clammy hand for the money.

“Wait a minute,” Best said. “If you’re going to deal that way, I’m going to have a receipt for this money, and a complete release of any claim for what I’ve done in that case.”

Dillon nodded, jammed his finger on the button which summoned his secretary. When Norma Pelton entered the office, Dillon said: “Make out a receipt right away to Gilbert Best, for seven hundred and fifty dollars, show that the receipt is by way of complete settlement of any claim I may have against him for an overcharge, or obtaining money under false representation.”

Norma Pelton looked surprised.

“Also put in there,” Best said, “that by accepting the money, Dillon waives any benefit that might accrue to him from my services, and I agree not to make any charge against him for anything I’ve done.”

Norma Pelton’s blue eyes regarded Gilbert Best with thoughtful speculation. The detective’s right eye drooped in a slow, significant wink.

Norma Pelton suddenly turned away. “Very well,” she said.

She left the door open to the outer office. The men glowered at each other in silence while her typewriter exploded into clacking noise, then she jerked the paper from the typewriter, brought it to the inner office.

Dillon read it and nodded. He took out his fountain pen. “Seven hundred and fifty bucks, Best,” he said.

Best passed the money across, as Dillon signed the receipt; he pocketed the paper and got up to go.

“I’m sorry,” Best said, “that you feel I didn’t do anything. I thought I did a lot.”

“I don’t know what you could have done,” Dillon said, “the compromise was concluded along the original lines that I’d discussed with Wigmore.”

“Well,” Best said drawlingly, “you’d always claimed that Wigmore cut corners and pulled shyster tactics in his cases. You wanted to get some dope on him, but you’d never been able to do it. I’ve got some proof that he spirited away this witness, Manning. I’ve got a letter signed by Wigmore and a check for a hundred dollars made out by the Airline Stageways, and charged on the stub to legal expense, a check that is referred to in Wigmore’s letter, and show that it was sent to this witness, Manning, in order to keep him out of sight, and intimates that he’s to suborn perjury if he has to, in order to keep his job. Then I’ve found Walter Manning and had a subpoena served on him so that he’ll have to appear and testify, and managed to make Wigmore think Manning had double-crossed him so that he won’t have anything to do with Manning anymore and is shivering in his boots for fear the whole thing is going before the grand jury.”

Frank Dillon heaved his paunchy figure from the chair, his mouth was sagging open, his eyes were bugged out in startled surprise.

“You’ve got what?” he yelled.

“Sure,” Best said, pulling the papers from his pocket, holding them in his hand. “There’s Wigmore’s signature on the letter, there’s the original uncashed check payable to Walter Manning, here’s the questionnaire that they tricked Ellen Hanley into signing, with her signature on it.

“They may have reached a compromise, but a compromise isn’t binding until the releases have been signed, and the money paid over. They can back out of a compromise anytime they want to.”

“What do you mean?” Dillon demanded. “What are you intending to do?”

“Why,” Best said, “I’m going over to the Airline Stageways, of course, and see how much Wigmore will pay to get this questionnaire back. That’s the plaintiff’s signature on it all right, and she says in there plain as day that she received only superficial injuries in the accident, and has had a complete recovery. And then, of course, Wigmore should pay something to get that letter back that he wrote to Walter Manning. He wrote that sort of hastily, and it might look kind of bad for him if it was taken up before the Bar Association.”

“Good God!” said Dillon. He tried to talk, but could only make pawing motions with his hands. He dropped back into his chair and finally found words.

“Get Wigmore on the telephone, Norma,” he said. “Get him right away. Tell him that my client simply refuses to consider a twenty-thousand-dollar compromise. Tell him that we won’t settle for a cent less than a hundred thousand dollars... No, you get him on the line. I’ll talk to him myself. Put through the call right away. Good God, to think that I almost lost forty thousand dollars. Why, I’d have settled for twenty. As it is now, he’ll pay a hundred. He’ll have to pay in order to get that stuff back.”

Best stretched and yawned. “I wouldn’t turn down that twenty-thousand-dollar compromise, Dillon,” he said.

The lawyer snorted. “That shows,” he said, “what a dumb boob you are. You certainly are lucky, that’s all. Damned if I know how you do it. It’s just luck, it can’t be brains. Why you poor boob, Wigmore has got to give almost anything I ask to get that letter back.”

“Yeah,” said Best, “I understand that, but what I meant was that you ain’t got the letter, and when Wigmore gets that letter back, and the questionnaire signed by Ellen Hanley, he won’t even compromise for twenty thousand bucks. He won’t pay you a damn cent. That’s why I didn’t think it would be wise for you to turn down that twenty-thousand compromise.”

The detective pulled open the door of the law library, and at that moment the telephone on Dillon’s desk exploded into noise.

Dillon made clawing motions at the air, as though trying to pull the detective back with his right hand, his left reached for the telephone.

“Hello... For God’s sake, Best don’t go!... Hello, yes Wigmore... Hold the line. For God’s sake, Best listen!... No, no, Wigmore, I can’t tell you... Yes, I asked my secretary to get you, but... For God’s sake. Best!... Best!... Best!... ”

The detective by that time had crossed the outer office. He tipped Norma Pelton a wink. “The big stuffed shirt,” he said.

There was the sound of running steps. The paunchy lawyer waddled into the room, his face the color of ashes.

“For God’s sake, Gil, old kid,” he said, “don’t treat me like this. Don’t turn me down. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“No,” Best said, “our business relations are at an end. The work I did on the case wasn’t done for you, it was freelance work. I can sell it to the highest bidder.”

“But I’ll bid for it,” Dillon said. “My God, I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”

“Wigmore,” said Best, “would probably give me fifty. It would get him out of a jam personally, and enable him to get rid of that Hanley case without paying out anything by way of compromise.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand—”

Best turned to face Dillon.

“Listen,” he said, “you big stuffed shirt, I know you like a book. You four-flushing, loud-mouthed, grandstander, now here’s once you’re going to talk turkey. If you want that letter from Wigmore and that questionnaire, you’re going to agree that you won’t charge Ellen Hanley more than twenty percent of whatever amount you receive, and you’re going to pay me twenty percent. The rest of the money is to go to her.”

Norma Pelton looked up from the switchboard. “Mr. Wigmore is still on the line,” she said. “He’s sputtering—”

Dillon danced up and down in an ecstasy of rage. “You damn robber!” he shouted. “You damn—”

Best started for the door. Dillon lunged for him, flung his arms around the detective’s shoulders, looked imploringly at Norma Pelton.

“For God’s sake, Norma,” he said, “tell him to wait.”

The flabby hands tugged at the detective’s shoulders.

“Come on in, Gil old kid,” he said. “I’ll play ball with you. Come on in.”

Best turned, vanished through the door marked, Private, with the lawyer pushing along behind him.

It was fifteen minutes later when Best emerged from the office.

“How’s tricks?” asked Norma Pelton.

Best grinned at her. “Pretty good. I told Dillon that I heard he’d been reducing wages because business was bad. I told him I thought business was picking up with him.”

She grinned. “What did he say?”

“You listened in on the conversation with Wigmore?”

“Yes. It was the funniest thing I ever heard in my life.”

“Well,” Best said, “to make a long story short, that ten-percent cut becomes a twenty-percent increase.”

“I could kiss you,” she said, “if I weren’t afraid you’d take it seriously.”

Gilbert Best strode toward the desk. The switchboard buzzed into activity and Norma Pelton started to plug a line into Dillon’s phone.

“The boss wants me,” she said.

Best leaned over, jerked the plug out of her fingers, tilted her face to his. “Let him wait,” he said. “The stuffed shirt.”