Slowly, with complete appreciation of the dramatic hush in the room, the senator moved out from behind his desk. He stood, as he had often stood before the senate; his head thrown back, his audience in a semicircle about him. He had a speech to deliver, too, and his eyes were glittering points of light behind slitted lids. He would give them the speech and he would watch it strike and wound them, watch them stiffen with the shock of what he was going to do. It was to be his night.
“A man with money has no private life,” he said slowly. “He is a target for relatives who need help, for organizations that believe that they need help, for chiselers and crooks and prospective heirs who are impatient for him to die.”
His voice rose. “I have had too much of all that and I am through. I know enough of the law to know how difficult is the way of escape. If I make a gift of the money that I own, a relative might possibly block that gift by challenging my competence. If I try to spend it in my own way, I am open to suits and annoyance and interference.”
He pounded his right fist into his open palm. “There is one thing that I can do with my money — beyond any appeal to the courts and beyond any other appeal. I am going to do that one thing.”
He balanced himself like a shot-putter; then literally hurled his words into the room. “I am going to burn every dollar of it,” he said.
He stopped and let the echo of his words hang. He saw Vi Dawson sit up stiffly, saw Tim Weller’s teeth bite clean through his cigar, saw the forward thrust of Greg Cooper’s body. Only Mildred Harney held control of her facial muscles. She bent slightly forward and she squeezed hard on her tiny handkerchief with her right hand, but she was unshaken.
His heart glowed and invincibility swept in a torrent through his veins. She was with him and she was game. He hadn’t told her what he was going to do.
“Every dollar,” he repeated grimly. “Light the paper under that pile of wood in the fireplace, Hito. You, Deshler, come over here near my desk!”
He snapped his commands, the servants moved forward and the spell broke. Tim Weller came to his feet with a loud snort. “Bradford, you’re insane!”
The senator met his glare. “I was never saner in my life. I am exercising a privilege. I am beset by leeches, by people looking to me for support and by people waiting for me to die. Well, I’m fooling them. When I get through, they will have nothing to get from me because I will have nothing to give.”
He was wound up to a speech-making mood but he ran down under the baleful glare of his brother. Tim Weller tapped the floor with his cane.
“Leeches!” he snorted. “Bah! You’ve lived off the brains of other people all your life. And you talk about burning money. Your right to burn money! Fiddlesticks! No man has the right to destroy what he didn’t create. Money is a form of wealth.” He shook a long forefinger at his brother. “And you never created wealth of any kind in your life.”
Bradford Weller felt his heart hammering hard again. He took a backward step and cursed himself inwardly for weakness. He was afraid of his brother, afraid of the wrath in the older man’s eyes. The conciliatory habits of the years ate at his resolve. Then, behind him he heard the snapping crackle of the flames as the paper blazed under Hito’s match. His back stiffened at the sound.
“Nevertheless,” he said, “the money is mine and I choose to burn it.”
Vivian Dawson was standing. She turned toward Greg Cooper, her wide eyes appealing to him. Cooper’s jaw was ridged hard, his brows drawn down. Bradford Weller could see him from where he stood facing his brother and he decided suddenly that he was afraid, too, of Cooper. Cooper had a keen brain and he thought things through. He would have to throw Cooper off balance.
“Hito,” he said, “you will unpack those boxes beside Mr. Cooper’s desk. Check the packages out, Cooper! Deshler! Come over closer to where I’m standing.”
He looked into his brother’s eyes as he gave his commands. The anger seemed to have drained from Tim Weller or if the anger still burned in him, he lacked the energy to throw it off in words. He sat down heavily.
“The money is in your name,” he said.
Vivian Dawson threw one more despairing look at Greg Cooper and when he did not speak, she faced the issue herself. “Please, Uncle Brad,” she said, “you’ll leave Aunt Emily penniless.”
Bradford Weller’s lips thinned to a tight line. The mere mention of Emily Weller’s name was enough to steel him in his resolve.
“The best means of making sure that your Aunt Emily does no worrying about my future,” he said, “is for me to ignore hers.”
He turned his back on Vivian Dawson and on his brother. Hito looked up at him, sweat heavy on his yellow face, his small black mustache limp. The senator felt perspiration heavy on his own forehead, the trickle of it down his spine.
“Feed that money to the fire, Hito,” he said, “as fast as Mr. Cooper can check it.”
The Japanese made a clicking sound with his tongue and looked at Greg Cooper. Cooper nodded to him. “I put rubber bands around the bills and wrote the amount of each package on a tag,” he said huskily. “Read the amounts to me.”
The senator felt the support of his armed guard, Deshler, at his back and the need for him. Tim Weller had half risen in his place again, Vivian Dawson had taken a step forward — and Greg Cooper had hesitated. Hito picked up the first package.
“One sousand dollar!” he said.
Cooper said “Check” and the package hit the flames.
Chapter V
Death
It was very warm in the study of Bradford Weller as the flames in the open fireplace mounted higher and the crouching Japanese continued to feed them with packages of bills.
“One sousand, two hundrer dollar!”
“Check.”
The litany went on as Hito called the amounts and Cooper checked them off his sheet. Mildred Harney came over beside the senator and squeezed his arm. He patted her hand.
“Good girl,” he said.
He knew, himself, that it was an absurd remark but he felt stiff and uncomfortable and a little frightened. There was a feeling of doom in the room as though that small group of people concentrating upon the blazing money threw off waves of hostile force.
Tim Weller was sitting like a statue carved out of ancient wood, his hands crossed over the head of his cane and his eyes expressionless. Vivian Dawson was looking bitterly at Greg Cooper. Mike Deshler had his big fists clenched and the perspiration was running in large, rolling beads through the seams in his battered face.
“One hundred thousand dollars. Isn’t that enough to burn?”
Greg Cooper’s voice snapped through the tension in the room. He had his pencil suspended and he checked Hito with his other hand while he waited for the answer to his question. The senator shook his shoulders. He smiled grimly.
“I said every dollar, Cooper.”
“Okay.” Cooper matched the senator’s shrug with one of his own. Hito moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and lifted another package.
“One sousand dollar!”
“Check!”
Vivian Dawson rose with a sharp exclamation and hurried from the room. Greg Cooper’s eyes followed her miserably and he missed one of the packages. Hito caught his mistake for him and did the arithmetic.