Bascomb has lived in for years."
"If I were in Bascomb's place," Dick declared positively, "I would go
before the board of directors and tell them the whole story. Then no one
else could ever hold any power over me."
"I guess that's the way all of us think we would act if we'd meet a
blackmailer," nodded Reade. "Yet I guess most of the victims, when there's
a sad, true story that could be told about them, pay the blackmailer and
so secure silence."
"Which may be another way," mused the young army officer, "of saying that
most men are cowards. Or, maybe, it's another way, after all, of saying
that the man who does anything very wrong or crooked is generally such a
coward at heart that he'll spend his savings in keeping his secret from the
world."
"Yet Bascomb must have shown considerable bravery in meeting Evarts's
demands," suddenly suggested Reade. "Otherwise, Mr. Bascomb would now be
a poor man and Evarts would have spent all of Bascomb's money. Heretofore,
I imagine, Evarts hasn't been able to blackmail his relative for anything
much more substantial than a good job. I hear that Evarts has been drawing
good pay from the Melliston Company for something more than four
years---and Evarts isn't a very useful man, at that.
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