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you were bluffing, how would they dare take the chance that you weren’t?”
    As the beauty of the scheme sank into her mind, she smiled at last at this vision of the perfect weapon. “But then it will cost your firm a great fee,” she protested. “Is there any way I can make it up to you? Can I give you a fee?”
    Tilney threw back his head with a roar of laughter. “My dear Margaret, what sort of crook do you take me for? Haven’t I been unethical enough for one day?” He rose and reached out a hand. “Come now. Go home and write that letter. Make me proud of you. That’s all the fee I could ever ask.”
    Â 
    The next days were delectable ones for Tilney. He never missed the chance, passing Hyde in a corridor, to boom a hearty question at him as to how the great case was going, and he would chuckle loudly at the other’s evasive and discomfited answers. After a fortnight had passed, he felt that it was time, at a firm lunch, to call down the table to Hyde for a report on the Granger case.
    â€œWhen you last spoke of it,” he added, “you told us it was as good as settled. Has the agreement been signed?”
    Hyde stared back at him with unconcealed malevolence. “I suppose the word’s out by now that the settlement has fallen through.” He snorted in disgust as he directed a less baleful stare around the table at the other partners. “I was going to tell you all today, anyway. Frankly, gentlemen, it’s the damndest thing that’s ever happened to me. The agreement was all hashed out, typed and ready to sign. We’d even told the surrogate about it in chambers. And then, whambo, somebody gets cold feet, the widow or the foundation, and refuses to go through with it. Oh, I can tell you, their counsel’s face was
really
red. Old John Gales, of Gales & Martin, admitted to me he was thunderstruck. He actually apologized!”
    â€œWhat are they trying to do?” Waldron Webb demanded hotly. “Shake you down a hundred grand at the last moment? It’s the most unscrupulous thing I ever heard!”
    â€œThat may be it, I don’t know. But Gales says they won’t settle for a penny. Somebody seems to have got religion on the Granger Foundation.”
    â€œIn that case, what do we do now?” Tilney demanded, frowning. “Fold our tents and steal away?”
    â€œNo such luck, Clitus,” Hyde retorted angrily. “If it’s a fight they want, they’ll get a fight. And if it’s dirt they want, they’ll get their fill!”
    â€œThat’s a pleasant prospect,” said Tilney with an acid smile. “But first of all, there’s one little matter that I feel obliged to bring to the attention of the firm. I note on the monthly statement that more than thirteen thousand dollars of cash disbursements have been charged to Mrs. Crimmins’ account. Of course, I understand that the fee basis is contingent, and that we get nothing if we lose, but you must surely know, Frank, that lawyers can’t pay clients’ disbursements. Isn’t that champerty?”
    â€œWhat am I expected to do? Mrs. Crimmins hasn’t got that kind of money.”
    â€œWell, Mrs. Crimmins had better find it, I’m afraid,” Tilney continued in a sharper tone. “She’d better beg, borrow or steal it. The firm has suffered enough from the bad publicity of this case without having the Grievance Committee of the City Bar breathing down our neck. In the meanwhile I have given the cashier instructions that no further sums are to be charged to that account.”
    â€œDoes that mean,” Hyde demanded irately, “that I can no longer sign a chit for a taxi to go to court?”
    â€œIt means precisely that. If you go to court on the Granger case.”
    Hyde pushed his chair roughly back and strode from the room while the partners exchanged uneasy glances.
    â€œDoes anyone think