The table talk was not sparkling; everyone was hungry. "Am I to understand," Hubble probed gently, "that Miss— that Lavin, I mean, was actually abducted by Mr. Arnold?"
"Doubt it very much," said Norma, chewing. "He probably just looked unhappy and said something like, 'Dear me, I wish something could be done about that stock.' Some foot-kisser standing by set the wheels in motion. Arnold's hands would be clean. Not his fault if people insist on exceeding their authority."
She took another forkful of wild rice. "They had me for about a week. My God, what confusion! I could go and I couldn't go. I was free to leave any time I cared to, but temporarily they thought it would be better to keep the door locked. Sign your residuary legatee's share of the stock to us and we'll pay you a cool million. But we don't want the stock, of course. It has only a certain small nuisance value. Now, lady, are you going to be reasonable or do we have to get tough? My dear girl, we wouldn't dream of harming you!"
She scowled. "Arnold came to see me once. He kept pretending that I was trying to sell to him. I don't know, maybe that's what somebody told him. All I know is, I feel as though someone hit me over the head with a lighthouse."
A butler shambled in. "Are you at home to Mr. Arnold, sir?" he whispered.
"No!" crowed Hubble delightedly. "You hear that, Coett?"
Nelson cut in, "Hold it a minute, Bliss. Are you sure you're doing the right thing? Maybe if the three of us got together—" he looked quickly at Mundin. "That is, perhaps all of us could freeze out the Toledo bunch."
Coett said, "Tell him to go to blazes. Tell the butler to tell him, so we can all hear it. First we settle things among ourselves—then we figure who else we have to cut in, if anybody. But I don't think we need anybody else."
"Tell him," Hubble said gleefully to the butler. "Fellows, if you knew how long I'd waited—Well, all right. Harry's right, George. Figure it out. You've got eleven per cent under your thumb, counting proxies for the voting trust. I've got five and a half, solid. Harry has three of his own, and he influences—how many, Harry?"
"Nine," said Coett shortly.
"You see?" said Hubble. "That's plenty. With these people's twenty-five per cent, we—"
Mundin came down heavily on Norma's foot just as she was opening her mouth to ask how they had located the stock. He said rapidly, "Don't you think we should save this till dinner's over?"
Hubble cast an eye around the table. "Why, dinner's over now," he said mildly. "Let's have our coffee in the library."
Hubble stopped at the entrance to the library and did something with a switchbox before permitting the others to enter. "Have my own controls here," he said pridefully. "Wife has most of the house, hah-hah, she can't begrudge me one little nook of my own! Let's see if we can't get something more cheerful." The "library"—there wasn't a book or microfilm in sight—shimmered and flowed, and turned into something like a restoration of a nineteenth-century London club.
Mundin tested one of the wing-back chairs suspiciously, but it was good. Norma was still staring at him thoughtfully; but she kept her mouth shut and he said cheerily, "Now, gentlemen, to work."
"Right," said Harry Coett. "Before we get too deep, I want to know how we stand on one thing. I'm sure it's just one of those crazy things that get started, but I heard somebody say something at the meeting. They mentioned Green, Charlesworth. Just for the record, have you got anything to do with them?"
Green, Charlesworth. Ryan had mentioned them, Mundin recalled; they seemed to be something to worry about. Mundin said definitely, "We are not from Green, Charlesworth. We are from ourselves. Miss Lavin and her brother are the direct heirs of one of the founders of G.M.L. I—uh—happen to have a trifling amount of stock myself—besides being their attorney."
Coett nodded briskly. "Okay. Then it's a plain and simple raid; and we've got the muscle to do it. I take it we are all agreed, then, that the first step is to throw the corporation into bankruptcy?"
Mundin said in a strangled voice, "Hey!"
Coett grinned. "I thought you were no expert," he said amiably. "What did you expect, Mundin?"
"Why," Mundin floundered, "there's—ah—your stock, and our stock, and—well, it seems clear-cut to me. Majority rules, doesn't it?"
He stopped. All hands were enjoying a good, though polite, laugh. Coett said, "Mr. Mundin, you have a lot to learn. Do you seriously think we could vote our stock outright under the existing rules?"
"I don't know," Mundin said honestly.
"You don't," Coett agreed. "You can't rock the boat. The proxies won't stand for it; a raid, yes, but handled right,"
Norma Lavin commented, "I suppose he's right, Mundin. They've stopped us so far, one way and another. The only real change is that now these people know we're alive and think they can take us to the cleaners."
"Please," said Hubble and Nelson unhappily.
Coett, grinning, assured her "You are absolutely correct. For the first time I begin to doubt that we can do it."
Mundin interrupted, "Why bankruptcy?"
They all stared at him. Finally Hubble asked diffidently, "Ah—how would you do it, Mr. Mundin?"
Mundin said, "Well, I'm no corporation lawyer, gentlemen —I leave that aspect of it to my colleague, Mr. Ryan, who is a member of the Big Bar. But it seems to me that our first step is, obviously, to form a stockholder's committee and request an accounting from the present board. We can back it up, if you think it necessary, with a notification to the S.E.C. I know, naturally, that Arnold's group will stall and attempt to compromise, probably offer us some kind of board representation far less than our holdings entitle us to. But that's simple enough to handle; we simply enter protest and file suit in—"
Hubble and Nelson said, "Risky."
Coett said, "It'll never work. Look, youngster, that won't get us to first base, I remember when the Memphis crowd tried—"
Mundin interrupted, "The who?"
"The Memphis crowd. Arnold's group. They took G.M.L. away from the Toledo bunch eighteen years ago through due process, the way you're talking about. But it took six years to do it, and if the Toledo bunch hadn't been caught short in Rails they never would have made it And they're still strong; you saw how Arnold had to put Wilcox on the board to placate them."
Mundin, who did not know what in hell the man was talking about, said desperately, "Can't we at least try?"
"Waste of time! When Arnold took over, G.M.L. had assets of less than ten billion. We have before us an immensely larger mass of capital. It has inertia, Mundin. Inertia. You can't move it with a feather; you need dynamite. It's going to take time and it's going to take money and it's going to take hard work and brains to budge it. I'll tell you how."
And he did. Mundin listened in growing bewilderment and something that came close to horror. Bankruptcy! How did you put a corporation worth fourteen billion dollars, eminently solvent, unbelievably prosperous, into bankruptcy?
He didn't like the answers when he heard them. But, he told himself, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few golden eggs.
Coett, enjoying himself, was planning in broad, bright strokes: "All right, Bliss, you get your chaps on the petition for composition and arrangement; we'll spring that one ourselves, before they think of it and we'll want it ready. Then—" Mundin, grimly taking notes, stuck through it to the end. But he wasn't enjoying the practice of corporate law nearly as much as he had always thought he would. He wished urgently for the presence of old Ryan. And a nice full tin of yen pox.