“He’s attending that directors’ meeting?” Mason asked.
“Oh, yes. He has a finger in every pie the corporation cooks these days.”
“Look here,” Mason said suddenly, “when you resigned as president did you resign as a director also?”
Clarke nodded.
Mason said, with a trace of irritation in his voice, “You should have told me this before I drew up that pooling agreement.”
“Why? What’s that got to do with it?”
“Suppose,” Mason said, “they put you up as a director in the corporation. Salty is in there, voting your stock under that pooling agreement. That would be the same as though you voted for yourself. Once you become a director you’re acting in a fiduciary capacity. If you have knowledge affecting the value of corporate assets and fail to give the corporation the benefit of that knowledge — Get Salty out of that meeting before they can do anything about—”
“The meeting’s all finished, Mr. Mason,” Dorina said. “I heard the chairs scraping back just as I came by the room.”
Clarke looked at Mason. “Isn’t there some way I can beat that?”
Mason shook his head. “The minute you become a qualified director, even if it’s only for a few minutes, you’re licked. You can’t withhold this information and then subsequently... Wait a minute — under the by-laws does a director have to be a stockholder?”
“I believe he does,” Clarke said.
“What’s your stock worth?”
“Three or four hundred thousand, anyway, and perhaps more. Why?”
“I want to buy it,” Mason said, and added with a grin, “for five dollars. I’ll have a private understanding with you that I’ll sell it back to you for five dollars and five cents day after tomorrow, but no one is to know of that agreement.”
“I can’t hurry up those stairs,” Clarke said. “It’s up in my desk on the second floor, in the third pigeonhole from the right.”
“Desk locked?” Mason asked, getting to his feet.
“No. There’s a lock, but it won’t work. I’ve been intending to have it fixed. A key broke off in it. Suppose you could find — Dorina, how about showing Mr. Mason the way to my room? You can go up the back stairs.”
Dorina, standing by the table, seemed for the moment not to have heard him.
Mrs. Sims said, “Dorina, honey, wake up. Look out — don’t upset the sugar! Mr. Clarke wants you to take Mr. Mason up to his room.”
“Oh, yes. Certainly.” She smiled with the vague expression of a person waking from a sound sleep. “Will you come this way, please, Mr. Mason?”
Mason said, “Here is your five dollars, Clarke. Consider the sale completed.”
Clarke lowered his voice. “If you hear the meeting breaking up, Mason, and find you can’t possibly make it, you know what to do.”
Mason held up his right hand, made a signing motion and raised his eyebrows.
Clarke nodded.
“That,” Mason said, “would make complications.”
“I know, but we can’t afford to let them catch us in that trap.”
Mason caught Dorina by the arm. “Come on, young lady,” he said.
Dorina Crofton led the way up a flight of back stairs. Wordlessly she hurried down the corridor.
“You seem to be a young woman of deep thoughts,” Mason said.
She gave him the smile which politeness demanded, said after a moment, “I guess I’m rather quiet today. This is Mr. Clarke’s room.”
Mason, who had been prepared for a sumptuous master’s bedroom, found himself surprised at the small room on the north side of the house. It contained a plain single bed, a bureau, a chest of drawers, a somewhat battered table, an old-fashioned roll-top desk, and a dozen or so framed photographic enlargements. A couple of coiled rawhide ropes hung on the wall. A pair of big roweled Mexican spurs hung between the two ropes. From the other wall, a worn rifle scabbard, still holding a gun, was suspended at an angle from a peg placed in the wall. A glass-enclosed gun cabinet held an assortment of rifles and shotguns. The skin of a big mountain lion was stretched along the third wall. At one time the room had evidently been an intimate part of a man’s personality, but now it had not been lived in enough to keep the atmosphere of warm friendliness and human occupancy which should have been a part of such a room. It had been kept scrupulously clean, yet it was a stiffly starched cleanliness that seemed divorced from the swirling currents of everyday activity.
Mason crossed over to the desk, pulled out the papers in the pigeonhole Banning Clarke had mentioned. He found the envelope containing the stock certificate, took it out, looked at it, saw that it was in order, and was just starting for the door when, from the lower floor, there came the sudden sound of several people talking at once, of footsteps gravitating toward the back part of the house, and that general bustle of activity which attends the breaking up of a meeting.
Mason stood still frowning at the stock certificate.
“What’s the matter?” Dorina Crofton asked.
Mason said, “The sale is completed, the certificate should have been signed before that meeting broke up.”
“Will it make any difference?” Dorina asked.
“It may make a lot of difference. Do you suppose there’s any way you could rush this certificate down to him before they get to the kitchen and—”
“They’re headed out that way now. I think they’re looking for him.”
Mason abruptly sat down at the desk, whipped out his fountain pen, pulled papers out of the pigeonholes until he found one bearing the signature of Banning Clarke.
He flashed a quick glance over his shoulder at Dorina Crofton.
She seemed completely unaware of what was going on, her mind apparently entirely occupied with some personal problem which absorbed her entire attention.
Mason spread the stock certificate out, placed the paper containing Banning Clarke’s signature just above it. For a moment he studied the signature; then, with a swift, sure touch, made a somewhat amateurish job of signing Banning Clarke’s name to an endorsement transferring the stock.
He replaced the paper from which he had copied Clarke’s signature, folded the stock certificate, pushed it down into his pocket and screwed the cap on his fountain pen.
“All ready,” he said.
Dorina moved silently out into the corridor. Mason felt certain that she had been so completely absorbed in what she was thinking that the significance of his act had not dawned on her.
They were all in the kitchen by the time Mason got there — Lillian Bradisson, who carried a little too much flesh and used just a bit too much make-up; Jim Bradisson, outwardly affable and good-natured in his friendliness; Moffgat the lawyer, stocky, well tailored, with hair that had been combed back so that every strand, glistening with hairdressing, was held in just the right position; Hayward Small, a wiry chap with quick, restless eyes and Salty Bowers, seeming completely detached from the others.
Mason gave them the benefit of a lightning survey and had them catalogued in his mind even before they became aware of his scrutiny.
Banning Clarke performed perfunctory introductions, and it seemed to Mason that the others were almost effusive in their cordiality. Moffgat particularly went out of his way to be friendly, although retaining somewhat of a careful reserve.
“I have just learned,” Moffgat said, “that you are to represent Mr. and Mrs. Sims in that fraud action. It will indeed be an honor to have such a famous opponent, Mr. Mason. I’ve seen you in court several times. I’m not certain that you place me — Moffgat & Steele, attorneys in the Brokaw Building.” He gravely tendered Mason a card.