The social mill ground on for another month.
Montague withdrew himself as much as his brother would
let him; but Alice, was on the go all night and half
the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile
to a friend—he was a man of family now,
he said, and his wild days were over. He had
got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though she
declared she had no need of it—if ever she
was going to any place, Charlie Carter always begged
her to use his. Charlie’s siege was as
persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance.
The great law case was going forward. After weeks
of study and investigation, Montague felt that he
had the matter well in hand; and he had taken Mr.
Hasbrook’s memoranda as a basis for a new work
of his own, much more substantial. Bit by bit;
as he dug into the subject, he had discovered a state
of affairs in the Fidelity Company, and, indeed, in
the whole insurance business and its allied realms
of banking and finance, which shocked him profoundly.
It was impossible for him to imagine how such conditions
could exist and remain unknown to the public—more
especially as every one in Wall Street with whom he
talked seemed to know about them and to take them
for granted.
His client’s papers had provided him with references
to the books; Montague had taken this dry material
and made of it a protest which had the breath of life
in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with
deadly earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of
one man to get a few thousand dollars, it was an appeal
in behalf of millions of helpless people whose trust
had been betrayed. It was the first step in a
long campaign, which the young lawyer meant should
force a great evil into the light of day.
He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook,
and he was glad to see that the work he had done made
its impression upon him. In fact, his client
was a little afraid that some of his arguments might
be too radical in tone—from the strictly
legal point of view, he made haste to explain.
But Montague reassured him upon this point.
And then came the day when the great ship was ready
for launching. The news must have spread quickly,
for a few hours after the papers in the suit had been
filed, Montague received a call from a newspaper reporter,
who told him of the excitement in financial circles,
where the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague
explained the purpose of the suit, and gave the reporter
a number of facts which he felt certain would attract
attention to the matter. When he picked up the
paper the next morning, however, he was surprised to
find that only a few lines had been given to the case,
and that his interview had been replaced by one with
an unnamed official of the Fidelity, to the effect
that the attack upon the company was obviously for
black-mailing purposes.
That was the only ripple which Montague’s work
produced upon the surface of the pool; but there was
a great commotion among the fish at the bottom, about
which he was soon to learn.
