Scales of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

with his thumb and forefinger. He was disconcerted when at this precise moment the butler came in to say that Colonel Cartarette had called and would like to see him. In a vague way the visit suggested a judgment. He took up a firm position on the hearthrug.
    “Hullo, Maurice,” he said when the Colonel came in. “Glad to see you.” He looked self-consciously into the Colonel’s face and with a changed voice said, “Anything wrong?”
    “Well, yes,” the Colonel said. “A hell of a lot actually. I’m sorry to bother you, George, so soon after your trouble and all that, but the truth is I’m so damned worried that I feel I’ve got to share my responsibility with you.”
    “Me!” Sir George ejaculated, apparently with relief and a kind of astonishment. The Colonel took two envelopes from his pocket and laid them on the desk. Sir George saw that they were addressed in his father’s writing.
    “Read the letter first,” the Colonel said, indicating the smaller of the two envelopes. George gave him a wondering look. He screwed in his eyeglass, drew a single sheet of paper from the envelope, and began to read. As he did so, his mouth fell gently open and his expression grew increasingly blank. Once he looked up at the troubled Colonel as if to ask a question but seemed to change his mind and fell again to reading.
    At last the paper dropped from his fingers and his monocle from his eye to his waistcoat.
    “I don’t,” he said, “understand a word of it.”
    “You will,” the Colonel said, “when you have looked at this.” He drew a thin sheaf of manuscript out of the larger envelope and placed it before George Lacklander. “It will take you ten minutes to read. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait.”
    “My dear fellow! Do sit down. What am I thinking of. A cigar! A drink.”
    “No thank you, George. I’ll smoke a cigarette. No, don’t move. I’ve got one.”
    George gave him a wondering look, replaced his eyeglass and began to read again. As he did so, his face went through as many changes of expression as those depicted in strip-advertisements. He was a rubicund man, but the fresh colour drained out of his face. His mouth lost its firmness and his eyes their assurance. When he raised a sheet of manuscript, it quivered in his grasp.
    Once, before he had read to the end, he did speak. “But it’s not true,” he said. “We’ve always known what happened. It was well known.” He touched his lips with his fingers and read on to the end. When the last page had fallen on the others, Colonel Cartarette gathered them up and put them into their envelope.
    “I’m damned sorry, George,” he said. “God knows I didn’t want to land you with all this.”
    “I can’t see, now, why you’ve done it. Why bring it to me? Why do anything but throw it at the back of the fire?”
    Cartarette said sombrely, “I see you haven’t listened to me. I told you. I’ve thought it over very carefully. He’s left the decision with me and I’ve decided I must publish…” he held up the long envelope… “this. I must, George. Any other course would be impossible.”
    “But have you thought what it will do to us? Have you thought? It… it’s unthinkable. You’re an old friend, Maurice. My father trusted you with this business because he thought of you as a friend. In a way,” George added, struggling with an idea that was a little too big for him, “in a way he’s bequeathed you our destiny.”
    “A most unwelcome legacy if it were so, but of course it’s not. You’re putting it altogether too high. I know, believe me, George, I know, how painful and distressing this will be to you all, but I think the public will take a more charitable view than you might suppose.”
    “And since when,” George demanded with a greater command of rhetoric than might have been expected of him, “since when have the Lacklanders stood cap-in-hand, waiting upon the charity of the public?”
    Colonel Cartarette’s response to