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By Root 14544 0

clearly recollect his face–and his daughter Mabel–I did what I could for her–even after her financial reverse she would have had enough to live decently–even in modest luxury–but no, she threw money away–always more–I loaned her a great deal at the bank–some of it I shamed her into paying–two or three notes I paid myself–for the memory of Le Moyne–and sent them canceled to her to shame her to discretion–but no–but she would come back to me without shame and stare at me out of her big eyes–they were dark and sullen and hot looking like a fever–and would say, I want money–and at last I brought a note to judgment–to shame her–to frighten her–for her own good–for she spent money like water–she spent in a fever to give balls and parties–to adorn herself, and she was plain–to get a husband–but men gave her no mind beyond courtesy–but she got a husband–from the West somewhere, a wealthy man, they said–he married her quickly and took her away–she died and was brought back here–the burial–it was a bad day and few came–not even in respect to Le Moyne–not even his friends, some of them–dead twelve years and they had forgotten him–people forget–”

The breath gave out, and for a long moment I thought there would not be any more. But some more came, and he said, “But–that–doesn’t matter–either.”

I thanked him and shook his hand, which was like cold wax and left a chill in my palm, and went out and got into my rented car and drove back to the city, where I got a drink, not to celebrate but to take the ice out of my marrow, which not the weather but the old man had put there.

I had found out that Mabel Carruthers had been broken, but had married a rich man from the West. Or rather what in Savannah they called “the West.” Well, that was a joke. Not doubt the rich man from the West had married her for the money, too. There must have been some gay times as the truth emerged. I left Savannah the next day, but not before I had gone out to the cemetery to look at the Carruthers vault, where moss encroached upon the great name and the angel lacked one arm. But that didn’t matter, for all the Carruthers were inside now.

I had knocked and the sound had been very, very hollow. I sunk the crowbar in deeper. Judge Irwin had not paid off his mortgage in 1914 with his wife’s money. What had he been doing in 1914 to get the money? He had been running a plantation, and he had been, under Governor Stanton, the state’s Attorney General. Well, you don’t clear $44,000 a season off a cotton plantation (it was that amount he had paid, for the $12,000 he had paid in 1910 had come from a mortgage on the house in the Landing, I discovered, which he cleared at the same time as the plantation). And his salary as Attorney General had been $3,400. You don’t get rich being an Attorney General in a Southern state. At least, you aren’t supposed to.

But in March of 1915 the Judge had a good job, a very good job. He resigned as Attorney general to become counsel and vice-president for the American Electric Power Company, at a very good figure of $20,000 a year. There was no reason why they shouldn’t have hire a lot of good lawyers for a lot less than $20,000 a year. But a job in 1915 doesn’t pay off the bailiff in 1914. When I knocked, it still sounded hollow.

So I took my one plunge in the stock market. One share of common stock of the American Electric Power Company, and it was cheap as dirt in the middle of the Depression. But it turned out to be a very expensive piece of paper. For a lot of people.

It was a coupon-clipper now, and I wanted to know how they were going to take care of my investment. So I took advantage of the stockholder’s right. I went down to look at the stock records of the American Electric Power Company. From the literal dust of time, I dug up certain facts: In May, 1914, Montague M. Irwin had sold five hundred shares of common stock, at par, to Wilbur Satterfield and Alex Cantor, who were, I was to discover later, officials of the company. That meant that Irwin had plenty in his pocket in late May to pay off the mortgages and have some change