minerva gray had that look in her eye.
ophelia did not want to get her started, so she simply nodded to minerva when she sat down at the breakfast table.
ophelia knew that the most inoffensive remark might get minerva going, even remarks that deliberately avoided the subjects minerva was fixated on.
but ophelia was to be disappointed, for minerva’s first remark as she reached for the toast was -
“i am going to see mansfield today.”
mansfield was one of the gray family’s better renumerated lawyers, and had spent much of his life involved in their disputes and differences over who owned what. disputes sometimes carried on or even settled In a civilized manner, sometimes in a not so civilized manner. of course in the more bitter disputes “outside” lawyers were called in by aggrieved parties, but the firm of simpson, simpson, and macarthur, in which mansfield was a senior partner, maintained its position as “the family’s” law firm.
“i thought,” said ophelia, “you were going to wait until - until a few months before - before -“ she could not bring herself to actually refer to the event she thought minerva had in mind.
“something has come up,“ minerva announced in her positive way. “i have heard something.”
“oh?” ophelia did not like the sound of that. if minerva had “heard something” it must have been from the private detective she had hired.
ophelia did not approve of an eighteen year old girl’s employing private detectives, but what could she do? it was the modern age.
“did you hear this ’something’ from your - mister gardner?” ophelia managed to ask.
“ha, ha! oh mother, you don’t have to say his name in that voice!”
“well, he is a - private detective.”
“i’ve explained to you, he is just a kind of clerk, who sits in a little office and reads through newspapers all day. he is no more likely to ‘pack a rod’ as they say in the moves, or get in a gunfight with gangsters than you are.”
ophelia sighed. “be that as it may, my dear, what did the fellow have to say?”
“he found a story about very interesting case in - in indiana or montana or one of those places.”
“and it was about roselle?” ophelia asked hesitantly. but it couldn’t be about roselle, she thought even as she said it, because then minerva would be more excited than she was.
“oh no. but it is about a murder case out there - the murder of a man whose family sued great-uncle walter over a patent back in the bronze age - a patent involving the shipping line. apparently some of the dead man’s relatives believe he was murdered by uncle walter - though of course they don’t come right out and say it.”
“how tiresome. and why does that interest you?” so it is not about roselle, ophelia though thankfully, and wished she had not uttered roselle’s name.
“why should i not be interested?” minerva demanded, as she poured too much sugar into her coffee. “after all, i am the major stockholder now.” minerva had become the major stockholder in the sprawling gray empire, on her eighteenth birthday several months before.
“maybe mansfield already knows about it,” ophelia offered.
“maybe he does. if he does, i just want to hold his feet to the fire about it.”
“of course, dear.” ophelia decided to drop the subject.
ophelia was old school. she felt that as long as a woman had even just a few million of her own, she should let the menfolk, and the lawyers and the accountants, worry about money.
No comments:
Post a Comment