Ten minutes after that, Barry Houston was alone in his office.

Jenkins was gone, discharged; and Houston felt a sort of relief in the knowledge that he had departed.

The last of the Thayer clan, he believed, had been cleaned out of his organization--and it was like lightening a burden to realize it.
That the lease and stumpage contract were fraudulent, Barry Houston was certain.

Surely he had seen neither of them; and the signing must have been through some sort of trickery of which he was unaware.

But would such a statement hold in court?
Houston learned, a half-hour later, that it wouldn't, as he faced the family attorney, in his big, bleak, old-fashioned office.
"It's all right, Barry, for you to tell me that you didn't sign it," came the edict.