Free Mignon by James M. Cain

first.”
    “Reading to whom? And why?”
    “To that bunch up there—those officers, up at headquarters. As a way of playing it safe, to see how it goes. If I’ve hit a sour note then I can tear it up, and perhaps you’ll step in. But I think you ought to be there.”
    What I actually thought was: He dared not not be there. He stared, while the rheum in his eyes glittered, and then said: “Me boy, I find this peculiar.”
    “But if you don’t want to go, Mr. Burke—”
    “I must, but ... What does this letter say?”
    “What can it say? ‘Please sir, let him out.’ ”
    He asked more questions, but now that I knew he would come, I was gaining nerve, and gave him open-faced answers. In the end he had no choice and picked up his hat and coat. Outside I called up a hack, but as we got in he told the driver: “We’re taking another passenger—stop at Lavadeau’s costume shop.”
    At Lavadeau’s, he hopped out and ducked inside, I suspected to find out what she knew about it. When he came out she was with him, her eyes big question marks. I had hopped out by that time too, and as we stood on the banquette I told her: “Mrs. Fournet, I hope you approve this thing I’m about to attempt—it’ll be nice if all of us pull together. But, whether you approve or not, as counsel I must do as I think best. It’s my responsibility.”
    “Well, since I don’t know what you’re doing—”
    “You will, all in due time.”
    We both sounded cold, and he apparently didn’t twig that we were doing an act. When he’d handed her into the cab and taken his place beside her, I took the facing seat, so her eyes could rove my face. They had a fishy look, or a good imitation thereof. At headquarters, he was for holding things up until we could get an order for the guard to fetch Mr. Landry, but that was completely forgotten when Olsen stepped out of the wire office. “We can’t have the press in this,” Burke roared in a kind of panic. “ ’Twould ruin us, me boy—the General makes the announcements! ’Tis how the thing is done!”
    She said stuff of a similar kind, taking cue as I looked at her, but I shrugged it off. “Olsen’s all right,” I said. “He’ll give us a fair report.”
    Then I led the way upstairs.

Chapter 9
    D AN DORSEY WAS SURPRISED AT the visitation, as I hadn’t given him any notice, but sat us down politely, and when I told him what we were there for sent the orderly out for more chairs, then went across the hall himself and came back with Major Jenkins. We had the pleasantries, including introductions to Mignon. Then I said to the officers: “Gentlemen, as Mr. Landry’s counsel, I’ve decided to make an appeal, a man-to-man thing, to the Commanding General himself, asking the release of a citizen who’s broken no law, who’s not even charged yet, who’s done nothing whatever but help those very boys, discharged Confederate vets, this Army is trying to reconstruct.”
    “One moment,” said the major. “If this is an appeal for clemency, it can’t be from nothing—has to be from something, the verdict of a court. But no verdict’s been rendered yet. And if he’s going to plead, as you indicated he would, how can he make an appeal from his own admission of guilt? I find myself confused.”
    “It’s an appeal to reason. To ordinary sense.”
    “On the basis of the evidence?”
    “Now you’ve got it, Major.”
    “Evidence is for a court to pass upon.”
    “Major, the Commanding General’s supreme, even overriding a court, certainly overriding you. Do you presume to decide what letters he may receive?”
    That calmed things down somewhat, but my eye crossed hers and, perhaps thinking she saw a cue, she cut in, pretty sharp: “Just a moment! I want our lawyer in this!”
    “Certainly,” I said. “I mean to consult him, of course. But first I want to read my letter to these gentlemen, for phraseology, so your father has the benefit—”
    “Then revise for final