Money to Burn/Chapter 26

ROBABLY not since the denunciation of Aaron Burr had such a charge been made in Washington. Villeta was not mad; he patently knew the full weight of his words, and yet he as patently enjoyed them. Uninvited, he sat down. He crossed his plump legs, tapped one of them with his Malacca cane, and beamed on his gaping audience.

Boyle swore. In a paroxysm of stupefaction, Hoagland grinned frozenly. For Farley this new surprise was one too many; he sought Cecilia's support, while Dan joined the others in looking from the cheerful face of Don Ramon to the dumfounded countenance of the secretary and back again. Since nobody else appeared able to speak, the Domingan embraced the opportunity that he had created.

“As you gentlemen will shortly discover,” said he, “this affair—at least as far as I am concerned—is all but concluded. Therefore, I may speak as I always prefer to speak—frankly. I do not conceal from you that it was my hope—if the initial venture succeeded and if, of course”—he inclined his great head to the gasping Cecilia—“and if, of course, my suit for this fair lady's hand was favored—to borrow, as time passed, other plates by means of her good will and efficient services. Nevertheless, Señor Secret Service Chief, my inherent honesty compels me to confess that I do not completely deserve your praise”

His auditors were gradually emerging from their paralysis. Hoagland, recovering an instant before his immediate superior, seized the opportunity thus provided.

“Cut it out! Cut out the society stuff!” he interrupted. “Chief,” said he to Boyle, “this guy never had one lone good quality except that he was decent to Pedro—and Pedro was a bird.”

Boyle decided upon nonchalance. He sought to cover wide wonder with a narrow smile. “Well, why shouldn't Señor Villeta be good to a bird? He's some bird himself!”

Don Ramon was not, however, to be distracted by persiflage. He went on: “I was saying, Señor Chief, that I do not completely deserve your generous encomium, and this is why. Attend now: Except for one bill here that—then without my knowledge—Señor Tucker had given to a temporarily embarrassed señor engaged by a house of paper makers of bank-note paper makers, to be exact—I have not yet put one of my notes upon the market.”

“What?” At least three voices shouted the unbelieving query.

“But no,” softly laughed Villeta, extending an open palm. “You must understand, my dear sirs, that when one what you call 'unloads' in such affairs as this, the unloading must be all at once, before governmental alarm is taken. Myself, I wished to print an even two million dollars before I started to sell my wares. I was consistent, and save for the few charred fragments that Señor Hoagland has brought here, and that one unfortunately given the paper maker, the only existing copies of notes I have printed are now on that desk there. I paid them to this señor doctor to quiet him and because I hoped him soon to disappear.”

Don Ramon paused. He raised a dramatic arm.

“Gentlemen,” he smilingly declared, “you have grievously wronged me. It is not I who have been the counterfeit. I used real paper and real plates—your paper and the plates that you had made. And you never thought to examine what you found, at last, in your own possession!”

There followed a silence scarcely less surprised than its predecessor. Don Ramon was radiant. Dan could not quite suppress a merely nervous chuckle, but everybody else was solemnly astounded. Then Farley pressed a finger to the bell designed to summon his senior assistant—and forgot to remove the pressure.

“Bring me,” said he, as Lemmell put his fussy little head into the crowded room, “the Fillmore hundred-dollar-note plates—and the standard note along with them.”

“Oh, you will see!” Don Ramon bit his ragged nails while they waited; but he ceased on Lemmell's return and began to rub his hands again in premonitory satisfaction.

Then, as he watched his contention indubitably verified, he shot his full bolt.

“The plates that were half innocently substituted by my poor, dear Miss Ceclilia [sic] Greene here”

“I hate you!” cried Cecilia. “And I wouldn't knowingly have got Mr. Farley in any trouble for anything!”

Farley daringly reached over and patted her supple shoulders.

“Were,” continued the unruffled Villeta, “not those which she had given to me. Not at all. What I gave her and what she then gave you were my own counterfeit plates, carefully but quickly copied from the originals—while those originals were in my possession—by your Señor Josiah Tucker, God rest his soul! Señor Secretary of the Treasury, you have been flooding your own country with bogus money!”

They came running toward him—all of them—their mouths agape. But he did not budge.

“And,” he serenely concluded, “unless you wish to expose your own foolishness by publishing this confession, you will find no charge on which you can legally hold me.”

He had the whip hand. It was Hoagland that struck it down.

“Well, I charge you,” said he, “with the murder of two of your own servants—two of your peons—fellows that you caught investigating your hacienda's chapel. Stone tells me they died before I got there—these two—but once you're locked up, we'll find some of your people willing enough to talk, and if I've learned anything about Santo Domingo” he looked at Boyle, who nodded a wise assent—“the courts down there, where of course you'll be tried, won't stand for the introduction of any impertinent evidence about matters up here in Washington.

The effect of that speech on the great criminal and the high government officials that it more or less directly involved was manifold. Quite ten minutes had elapsed before so unimportant a person as Daniel Gurney Stone, M. D.-minus, had a chance to act in repercussion to its effect on him. Then he managed, after several failures, to drag Hoagland privately into a corner.

“Look here,” he whispered. “As far as I can make things out, the secretary's letting everybody, except old Ramon, down easy, because there's an election due and he doesn't want publicity. He's even going to turn free that good-looking stenographer so she can marry her boss, and he'll probably give her a wedding present, by the looks of him. Why, he's promised me enough out of his own pocket to—well, he's whispered that I may keep the thousand Villeta paid me and apply it to my medical tuition fees. But what I want to ask you is this: You sounded a little while ago as if you knew something about Santo Domingan law. Can you inform me as to a good lawyer in San Domingo City, or Puerto Plata, who'll get back my fiancée's estate for her?”