The Embezzler Read Free

part of him as his measured tread and his stocky build. Face to, his square regular face and small pronounced features, his high forehead and stiff waved graying hair made up too granite a wall to be quite handsome, but in profile and when talking, always with perfect articulation, the narrowed eyes, the raised chin, the slight hook of the nose, gave an impression of lively sensibility and intelligence. There was always a Lord Byron lurking behind Rex's Daniel Webster. In his youth, when he had been paler and thinner, and his eyes had been sadder and darker, girls had even found him romantic. Certainly my cousin Alix Prime did. But he was not romantic that day, in his costly black suit, the fingers of one thick hand clutching the Phi Beta Kappa key at his waist, his wide-apart gray-green eyes staring at Mr. Cohen with an unblinking balefulness. Rex would never admit it, but he was deeply anti-Semitic.
    Certainly nothing about the examination was designed to alleviate this prejudice. Mr. Cohen spared Rex none of the details of his loan to me or the second attempted loan, underlining remorselessly his full knowledge of my depredations. At the end their two philosophies were summed up in pointed contrast:
    Cohen:
Tell me, Mr. Geer, as the partner of a member firm and as yourself a former governor of the Exchange, did you never feel that it was your duty to disclose to the Business Conduct Committee what you had discovered about Guy Prime?
    Geer:
You mean, did I feel it my duty to take the confidences of my friend and use them as the basis for his prosecution? It did not. I am not so Roman, Mr. Cohen.
    Cohen:
It is not only a Roman custom, Mr. Geer. In many American schools and colleges the honor system is practiced. It will only work, I am told, if the students are willing to report offenders.
    Geer:
Perhaps so. But the honor system is not practiced in the business world.
    Cohen:
The honor system, Mr. Geer, or honor?
    Geer:
I resent that, Mr. Cohen. It was quite uncalled for.
    Unfortunately, the committee did not agree. Its findings spelled out the end of the age of the gentleman in all the complacent jargon of the new panacea:
It is manifest from the testimony of the witnesses who loaned money to Guy Prime, all of whom were members of the Stock Exchange, and in particular from the testimony of Reginald Geer, that these men regarded the Exchange more in the light of a private club than a public institution. If a member erred, he had to be handled in such a way that the matter would not cause a scandal. This kind of code is hardly a policing adequate to protect the interests of today's investing public. The purchaser of a bond or stock is entitled at least to the protection accorded the purchaser of a patent medicine.
    The legislation that followed the hearing had been drafted long before my arrest. Like the flight to Varennes and the fall of the French monarchy, my folly affected only the timing of things. But Rex and the others chose to see me as the traitor who delivered them to the Roosevelts and the Cohens of the New Deal. This was more dramatic than to face the fact that they were mere pebbles under the juggernaut of the socialist state.

    Before I proceed to how it all happened I should offer a brief description of myself, as none of my grandchildren has ever seen me, nor does it now look as if any would. I have always been sturdy, but I am past the biblical life span, and the humid climate of Panama does not agree with me as did the cold dirty air of New York. My hair is as thick and curly as ever, but it is white as the snow I never see, and if I can still boast the broad shoulders and the straight build that made me the champion hockey player of St. Andrew's School, I must confess to a sizable pot. Still there are few wrinkles in my face, and my blue eyes are not yet gummy. "When I slap my hand on the table at the Rivoli bar every afternoon at four and thunder at George for my first gin and tonic, people jump. Oh, yes, I