"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a thing as an individual and as a group."
"What thing?"
"Why, taking a name."
"I don't get you," said Georgie.
"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court wouldn't let him—thought it was silly."
"Well?"
"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything Else without having to ask anybody—Oh, I say!"
Tutt had stiffened into sculpture.
"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated.
"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like. Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?"
"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely.
"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's marvelous—and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start things in the right direction."
For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly on his arm.
"What a clever boy you are—Sammy!"
A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison "Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose slightly in the air.
"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A perfectly wonderful idea!"
Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost tore Tutt's heart out by the roots.
"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful eyes. "I want five thousand dollars."
"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!"
"Only five from you, Sammy!"
"Me!" he gagged.
"You—dearest!"
Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it cautiously.
"What—are—you—talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly well.
Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had opened her gold mesh-bag.
"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation of a New England school-mistress.
"What five thousand dollars?"
"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy darling," she retorted dazzlingly.
Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; he was ashamed to think of his wife.
"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his weakness.
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates for physicians and lawyers!"
"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked.
"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy—too easy. But I want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars—and I leave you."
She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette.
"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office."
"Do I get the five thousand?"
He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat.
"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers? Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why, every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me exactly what I need on a gold plate."
He gazed at her stupidly.
"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled delightedly. "It's marvelous—absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to the reporters will start things in the right direction."
"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply blackmail!"
"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all, but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's your check book, Sam?"
Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and looked at her.
"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked defiantly.
"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars."
Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the money.
Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a nice little man. I rather like you."
Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss Wiggin still at her desk.
"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand dollars?"
"Charge it to life insurance,"