He had to be at least a little bit crazy.
She needed to think. She decided to leave this hot, smoky bar and get some air. She stood up and left them without saying goodbye.
As soon as she stepped outside she felt a little better. There was a cool breeze blowing in off the estuary. She crossed the road and walked along the dockside, listening to the seagulls cry.
The Clipper was out in midchannel. It was bigger than she had imagined: the men refueling it looked tiny. She found its huge engines and enormous propellers reassuring. She would not feel nervous on this plane, she thought, not after surviving a trip across the Irish Sea in a single-engined Tiger Moth.
But what would she do when she got home? Peter, would never be talked out of his plan. There were too many years of hidden anger behind his behavior. She felt sorry for him, in a way: he had been so unhappy all this time. But she was not going to give in to him. There might still be a way to save her birthright.
Danny Riley was the weak link. A man who could be bribed by one side could be bribed by the other. Perhaps Nancy could think of something else to offer him, something that would tempt him to change sides. But that would be tough. Peter’s bribe, a chunk of General Textiles’s law business, was hard to top.
Maybe she could threaten him. It would be cheaper. But how? She could take away some family and personal business from his firm, but that would not amount to much, nothing compared to the new business he would get from General Textiles. What Danny would like best would be straight cash, of course, but her fortune was mostly tied up in Black’s Boots. She could lay her hands on a few thousand dollars without much trouble, but Danny would want more, maybe a hundred grand. She could not get hold of that much cash in time.
While she was deep in thought, her name was called. She turned around to see the fresh young Pan American employee waving at her. “There’s a telephone call for you,” he shouted. “A Mr. MacBride from Boston.”
She felt suddenly hopeful. Maybe Mac could think of a way out of this. He knew Danny Riley. Both men were like her father, second-generation Irish who spent all their time with other Irishmen and were suspicious of Protestants even if they were Irish. Mac was honest and Danny was not, but otherwise they were alike. Pa had been honest, but he had been willing to turn a blind eye to a little sharp practice, especially if it would help a buddy from the old country.
Pa had saved Danny from ruin once, she recalled, as she hurried back along the dock. It was just a few years ago, not long before Pa died. Danny had been losing a big and important case, and in desperation he had approached the judge at their golf club and tried to bribe him. The judge had not been bribable, and he had told Danny to retire or be disbarred. Pa had intervened with the judge and persuaded him that it was a momentary lapse. Nancy knew all about it: Pa had confided in her a lot toward the end of his life.
That was Danny: slippery, unreliable, rather foolish, easily swayed. Surely she could win him back to her own side.
But she only had two days.
She went into the building, and the young man showed her the phone. She put the earpiece to her ear and picked up the stand. It was good to hear Mac’s familiar, affectionate voice. “So you caught up with the Clipper,” he said jubilantly. “Attagirl!”
“I’ll be at the board meeting—but the bad news is that Peter says he’s got Danny’s vote tied up.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes. General Textiles is giving Danny a chunk of corporate business.”
Mac’s voice became despondent. “Are you sure it’s true?”
“Nat Ridgeway is here with him.”
“That snake!”
Mac had never liked Nat, and had hated him when he started dating Nancy. Even though Mac was happily married, he was jealous of anyone who showed a romantic interest in Nancy.
“I pity General Textiles, having Danny do their law work,” Mac added.
“I guess they’ll give him the low-grade stuff. Mac, is it legal for them to offer him this incentive?”
“Probably not, but the violation would be hard to prove.”
“Then I’m in trouble.”
“I guess so. I’m sorry, Nancy.”
“Thanks, old friend. You warned me not to let Peter be the boss.”
“I sure did.”
That was enough crying over spilled milk, Nancy decided. She adopted a brisker tone. “Listen, if we were relying on Danny, we’d be worried, right?”
“You bet we would—”
“Worried that he’d change sides, worried that the opposition would make him a better offer. So what do we think his price is?”
“Hmm.” There was silence on the line for a few moments, then Mac said: “Nothing springs to mind.”
Nancy was thinking about Danny trying to bribe a judge. “Do you remember that time Pa got Danny out of a hole? It was the Jersey Rubber case.”
“I sure do. No details on the phone, okay?”
“Yes. Can we use that case somehow?”
“I don’t see how.”
“To threaten him?”
“With exposure, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have proof?”
“Not unless there’s something in Pa’s old papers.”
“You have all those papers, Nancy.”
There were several cartons of Pa’s personal records in the cellar of Nancy’s house in Boston. “I’ve never looked through them.”
“And there’s no time for that now.”
“But we could pretend,” she said thoughtfully.
“I’m not following you.”
“I’m just thinking aloud. Bear with me for a minute. We could pretend to Danny that there is something, or might be something, in Pa’s old papers—something that would bring that whole business out into the open.”
“I don’t see how that—”
“No, listen to me, Mac. This is an idea,” Nancy said, her voice rising with excitement as she began to see possibilities. “Suppose the Bar Association, or whoever it is, decided to open an inquiry into the Jersey Rubber case.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Someone could tell them it was fishy.”
“All right, what then?”
Nancy began to feel she might have the makings of a workable plan. “Suppose they heard that there was crucial evidence among Pa’s stuff?”
“They would ask you if they could examine the papers.”
“Would it be up to me whether I let them?”
“In a simple bar inquiry, yes. If there was a criminal inquiry, you could be subpoenaed, and then of course you’d have no choice.”
A scheme was forming in Nancy’s mind faster than she could explain it aloud. She hardly dared to hope that it might work. “Listen, I want you to call Danny,” she said urgently. “Ask him the following question—”
“Let me pick up a pencil. Okay, go ahead.”
“Ask him this. If there were a bar inquiry into the Jersey Rubber case, would he want me to hand over Pa’s papers?”
Mac was puzzled. “You think he’ll say no.”
“I think he’ll panic, Mac! He’ll be scared to death. He doesn’t know what’s there—notes, diaries, letters, could be anything.”
“I’m beginning to see how this might work,” Mac said, and Nancy could hear hope creeping into his voice.
