Free The Last Drive by Rex Stout Page B

meaning, incredulous. Readily he agreed to follow instructions.
    A little later, accordingly, the two men went in search of Fraser Mawson. They found the lawyer in the room at the rear of the lower hall that had served as Colonel Phillips’s office, arranging some papers, spread over the desk in confusion. It was with an expression of amiable inquiry that he turned to them and waved his hand toward chairs near the window.
    Harry began abruptly:
    â€œMr. Mawson, I’ve come to see you about that United Traffic.”
    The lawyer sent him a quick glance.
    â€œWhat about it? I thought that unfortunate affair was settled.”
    â€œIt is as far as I’m concerned, sir. As far as I’m directly concerned. But you remember I told you about a chap named Warner that got me in on it in the first place.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œWell, he’s in trouble. He got in too far and in trying to get out again he used some money that wasn’t his. Then the whole thing collapsed, and he’s up against it. They’re onto him.”
    â€œWhat has that got to do with you?”
    The young man explained, telling of the obligation he had been placed under to Gil Warner at college. He recited the circumstances in detail, while Mawson sat regarding him impassively and the detective gazed absently at nothing.
    â€œI’ve got to do it, that’s all,” Harry finished. “Of course if I help him out of this scrape I’m through with him, for I see now he’s nothing but a crook, but I was mixed up with him in this United Traffic thing, and it’s up to me to stick—not of course that I knew anything about his using money not his own.”
    â€œWhat do you want me to do?”
    â€œWhy, sir, I thought you might advance me enough cash to fix the thing. It would take a little over fifty thousand.”
    The lawyer was silent, frowning. He turned his keen eyes first on Harry, then on Rankin, and finally let them rest on the papers before him. With the fingers of his hand lying on the desk he was lifting a lead pencil an inch or so and letting it fall again with a series of sharp clicks.
    Suddenly he demanded:
    â€œWhat has Mr. Rankin got to do with all this?”
    Harry replied imperturbably that he had gone to the detective for counsel and had been advised to make an appeal to Mawson for the necessary funds. Another silence, shorter than before, and the lawyer turned eyes that had suddenly grown hard on the young man, and said abruptly:
    â€œEither Rankin is extremely clever or you’re an awful fool, Harry. It doesn’t matter which, since the result is the same. I had feared this—the fact, not the discovery of it—and yet it stuns me.”
    The young man looked at him in puzzlement. “What do you mean, Mr. Mawson?”
    The lawyer shook his head. “It’s useless, my boy. I can’t understand why you ever—did you think Rankin was so blind he wouldn’t see the coincidence between your urgent need for a large sum of money and the—the means of getting it?”
    â€œWhat—you don’t mean—”
    â€œI mean that if you attempted to leave this house now, or even this room, Mr. Rankin would probably insist politely but firmly on accompanying you. I don’t blame him. That’s his business. You have asked me to advance you fifty thousand dollars. That’s my business. Inasmuch as your uncle is dead, and as one of his heirs you are worth more than fifty times that amount, I can easily do so. I can get the money for you tomorrow morning in New York.”
    Harry had risen to his feet and then sank back again into his chair as one stupefied.
    â€œWhat—” he stammered, speechless at the horror of the thought, “you can’t mean to accuse me—my uncle—”
    â€œI don’t need to. You accuse yourself.”
    â€œBut I—why—”
    Another voice interposed, the voice of the