“The doctor?”
“I never said he was a doctor. That was your guesswork. Truthfully, Locky, aren’t you a little bit relieved that we can chat like this? We’ve been as intimate as two people can be, but now that it’s over, isn’t it a relief? I never did like you, remember. I trusted you, and I did love you, but this is the first time I ever felt that I liked you. There are two dear old people here in Philadelphia that have a wonderful friendship, and I’ve always heard that years ago they had a passionate love affair. Got over it, rode out the scandal, so to speak, and now they’re just the dearest friends. You and I might be that kind of friends some day.”
“No, I’ll never think of you as a friend.”
“Well, all right. I don’t think our paths will cross much anyway, once I settle down.”
“Settle down to what?”
“Settle down to the arrangement I thought I had with you. Well, I hear my cousin moving around and I think it would be polite if I went up and chatted with her. Goodbye, Locky dear. I’m sorry you won’t stay to lunch.”
He was eased out with such finesse that on the sidewalk he did not know which way to turn, and when he got his bearings and headed east he had a bewildering sense of having been the loser in a financial transaction, although his intelligence told him that the reverse was true. He had lunch alone in an oyster-house and later paid a call on Morris Homestead, with whom he was opening an account.
“I saw you at the station,” said Morris Homestead. “You and Martha Downs and your boys. I had to leave my boy and hurry down here. No chance to stop for a chat. How is Martha? We haven’t seen her.”
“She seemed well. Bright in spirits.”
“You can always count on that with Martha. And brighter than ever, now that a certain eminent physician has returned to town. No one has any illusions left about old Harry, but Martha has a few things to answer for too. Did she behave herself this summer? She was a neighbor of yours, wasn’t she?”
“It’s a very quiet, unfashionable place. No high life.”
“Martha can supply it if it isn’t there. I’ve always said about Martha that where there’s so much smoke, there must be some fire, and I don’t think Kingsland Rawson was the first to feel the, uh, glowing embers. I never trusted myself with her.”
“Is that so, Morris?”
“Nothing you could put your finger on, but always that sly look, that double-entendre. Sometimes the double-entendre was put in such a way that I’d have a hard time remembering the innocent meaning. I don’t know. One of these days Martha’s going to go too far, and she’ll find that things you say and do as a young woman aren’t always very becoming in an older one. Her family aren’t going to pick up after her forever.”
“I guess I hardly know her well enough to comment.”
“You don’t, and you’re fortunate. Now you take Alice Sterling. Do you know Alice Sterling? Cousin of Martha’s? Cousin of mine, for that matter.”
“I’ve only heard of her. Never been introduced to her.”
“Alice is eccentric, we all know that. Drinks like a fish. Has some of the oddest birds for friends, that sponge off her in every way possible. And yet Alice through it all is a perfect lady, and she doesn’t antagonize people as Martha does. Alice became a widow very young, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d had a lover or two in her day. Out of loneliness, don’t you know? Oh, nobody knows what goes on there, or what Alice really thinks. But everybody knows what Martha thinks. She says whatever comes into her head, cruel things, sometimes, and indiscreet when they’re not cruel. I know I’d never trust Martha with any secret of mine, and poor old Harry had to take up with that woman in New York just to have someone to confide in, to talk to.”
“There was more to it than that, though, wasn’t there, Morris?”
“Well, of course I assume so. You mean the primrose path of dalliance. Yes. That, too. But poor old Harry was driven to it. Companionship that he never got from Martha, but could get from Mrs. What’s Her Name in New York.”
“Oh, I thought Harry and Martha were very companionable.”
“If you got that impression you must have got it from Martha.”
“I did.”
“Not from Harry.”
“Harry never mentioned Martha to me.”
“Too much of a gentleman. He never mentioned her to me, either, but of course I could see for myself. Will you take a cigar, Locky?”
“Yes, I’d enjoy a cigar, thank you.” He took a cigar out of the proffered humidor, ran it across his upper lip. “Ah, this isn’t one of your toofers.”
“Toofers?”
“Two for a nickel.”
“Oh. Oh, no. Mr. Middleton keeps me supplied. I’ll send you a box of them next month, if I may. Mr. Middleton gets a shipment of the leaf once a month, and these are made up to my special order. Hope you don’t mind if the box has my name on it. Little personal touch, you know. Form of vanity, of course. Now then, down to business, Locky, eh?”
“Down to business. Nichols Sugar. I want to buy some.”
“Nichols Sugar? Nichols Sugar. Oh, yes. Yes, I know of it. Let me see what we have on it.” He reached for a little silver bell, but Abraham Lockwood stayed his hand.
“I can tell you all about it. I’ve been studying it for quite some time. I meant to go into it last spring, but in the confusion of poor Harry’s death I withdrew from trading, and that decision has cost me a nice potential profit in Nichols. Now I’m convinced that—”
“Excuse me, Locky. Didn’t the court rule against the Havemeyers last spring?”
“Ah, you do know what’s going on in sugar?”
“I was naturally interested in the court decision that dissolved the sugar trust. A very important decision to all of us. How would you have stood to make money then?”
“Nichols Sugar wasn’t one of the companies in the trust, therefore not subject to the dissolution.”
“Disillusion would be a better word for it. These law courts have taken over the management of all industry and commerce in this country. Where are they going to stop, is the question.”
“Well, if I knew for sure I’d soon be a very rich man. As rich as you, Morris.”
“I’m not so sure that you’re not this very minute,” said Morris Homestead. “Between us, just between us, I didn’t gain anything by poor old Harry’s manipulations. I’m sure that you lost some, but so did I, Locky. Never let friendship mix with business. I came to his rescue two years ago when you turned him down.”
“When I turned him down? But I never did turn him down. I refused to go into one or two things with him, but I never turned him down for a loan, if that’s what you mean. Did he tell you that I refused to come to his rescue?”
“Yes he did, and I took your part. But then I lent him a fair sum. Friendship. He had no right to expect you to do anything for him on that basis, and I told him so. My position was different. I was his closest friend, his oldest friend. You’d only known him as a classmate in college, not as boys together and so on. Now it appears that he lied to me.”
“Yes, he lied to you, as he did to me and apparently to a great many others.”
“We were victimized. Poor old Harry. A very good business man until he turned to evil ways, and then he didn’t know how to be a crook.”
“I came to the same conclusion, although in a roundabout way. No, I never refused Harry a loan. I would have, mind you, but he never asked me for one. Knew better, I guess.”