“That’s a good idea, Belle. Next time I’ll have one.”
“I’m aware of that, my dear,” Miles answered. “If he has, you are talking very loosely. Mind your tongue.”
Belle answered with a word I didn’t know she used. My eyebrows went up. “Snapping at each other? Trouble between thieves already?”
Miles’s temper was stretching thin, I was happy to see. He answered, “Mind your tongue, Dan . . . if you want to stay healthy.”
“Tsk, tsk! I’m younger than you are and I’ve had the judo course a lot more recently. And you wouldn’t shoot a man; you’d frame him with some sort of fake legal document. `Thieves,’ I said, and `thieves’ I meant. Thieves and liars, both of you.” I turned to Belle. “My old man taught me never to call a lady a liar, sugar face, but you aren’t a lady. You’re a liar . . . and a thief. . . and a tramp.”
Belle tuned red and gave me a look in which all her beauty vanished and the underlying predatory animal was all that remained. “Miles!” she said shrilly. “Are you going to sit there and let him-”
“Quiet!” Miles ordered. “His rudeness is calculated. Ifs intended to make us get excited and say things we’ll regret. Which you are almost doing. So keep quiet.” Belle shut up, but her face was still feral. Miles tuned to me. “Dan, I’m a practical man always, I hope. I tried to make you see reason before you walked out of the firm. In the settlement I tried to make it such that you would take the inevitable gracefully.”
“Be raped quietly, you mean.”
“As you `will. I still want a peaceful settlement. You couldn’t win any sort of suit, but as a lawyer I know that it is always better to stay out of court than to win. If possible. You mentioned a while ago that there was some one thing I could do that would placate you. Tell me what it is; perhaps we can reach terms.”
“Oh, that. I was coming to it. You can’t do it, but perhaps you can arrange it. It’s simple. Get Belle to assign back to me the stock I assigned to her as an engagement present.”
“No!” said Belle.
Miles said, “I told you to keep quiet.”
I looked at her and said, “Why not, my former dear? I’ve taken advice on this point, as the lawyers put it, and, since it was given in consideration of the fact that you promised to marry me, you are not only morally but legally bound to return it. It was not a `free gift,’ as I believe the expression is, but something handed over for an expected and contracted consideration which I never received, to wit, your somewhat lovely self. So how about coughing up, huh? Or have you changed your mind again and are now willing to marry me?”
She told me where and how I could expect to marry her.
Miles said tiredly, “Belle, you’re only making things worse. Don’t you understand that he is trying to get our goats?” He turned back to me. “Dan, if that is what you came over for, you may as well leave. I stipulate that if the circumstances had been as you alleged, you might have a point. But they were not. You transferred that stock to Belle for value received.”
“Huh? What value? Where’s the canceled check?”
“There didn’t need be any. For services to the company beyond her duties.”
I stared. “What a lovely theory! Look, Miles old boy, if it was for service to the company and not to me personally, then you must have known about it and would have been anxious to pay her the same amount-after all, we split the profits fifty-fifty even if I had. . . or thought I had. . . retained control. Don’t tell me you gave Belle a block of stock of the same size?”
Then I saw them glance at each other and I got a wild hunch. “Maybe you did! I’ll bet my little dumpling made you do it, or she wouldn’t play. Is that right? If so, you can bet your life she registered the transfer at once . . . and the dates will show that I transferred stock to her at the very time we got engaged-shucks, the engagement was in the Desert Herald-while you transferred stock to her when you put the skids under me and she jilted me and it’s all a matter of record! Maybe a judge will believe me, Miles? What do you think?”