Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

She wanted to do me, you know. You wouldn’t mind, would you, old man?” He gave Jimmie an elbow in the ribs, then steered him out of the building and down the street two blocks to his own favorite restaurant. Jimmie wondered if the imperious manner made him a better lawyer. It certainly made him seem one.
    But he was a good conversationalist and he treated Jimmie as a patron of the arts. It was quite pleasant in fact, and he allowed Jimmie to choose their wine, a compliment he avowed, which his palate allowed him to pay but rarely. It was with some reluctance that Jimmie steered their conversation around to the murder of Ellie True.
    “Oh, by the Almighty, what a mincemeat we made of your old office in that one!” Mumford shook with pleasure at the recollection.
    Jimmie assumed he meant the District Attorney’s office. With something understandably close to self-pity, he felt great sympathy for the prosecutor of the Reverend Alfonzo Blake. It was bad enough to have the case dismissed, but the bad publicity connected with having brought insupportable charges against a man of God…enough to stunt the ambition even of a district attorney. “Who tried that one for the Office?” Jimmie asked.
    Mumford mentioned the Assistant District Attorney.
    “It wasn’t old Jasper Tully who did the ground work for him, was it?”
    “No. We didn’t get the top boys. I’ll say that for them. Tully and his boss were tied up in a Labor Rackets hearing at Federal Court.”
    Jimmie felt much better. He was not a man who thrived on another’s mismanagements. And that was why he was not likely ever to be a trial lawyer of Mumford’s calibre: he lacked the deadly sense of competition. “Maybe you were lucky then,” he said.
    “I might have been at that,” Mumford admitted with surprising humility. “Ever come across a queer little duck called Theodore E. Adkins?”
    “Yes,” Jimmie said.
    “Yes, what?”
    Jimmie drew a deep breath. Nobody ever got anything for nothing from Elmo Mumford. “I’m about to defend him in a paternity suit.”
    “Now that’s a twist! By the Almighty, that is a twist. Who is it that finally got the knife into the poor bastard? He’s been a sitting duck for years.”
    “I think I’d rather let her get her own publicity,” Jimmie said. “What do you know about Adkins?”
    “He’s a born meddler. Not a do-gooder, mind you. He’s a calculator, and I wouldn’t underestimate his intelligence for a minute. If she’s got the knife in deep enough, though, I’d try to get her to take it out without twisting. Pay off a little. I’ll tell you why. If you put him on the stand in something like this, he won’t do himself any good. Too much ego. He’s got to show how clever he is. You can’t be clever out of one side of your mouth and naive out of the other. And naïveté is the only winning defense I know in these things.” Mumford brushed crumbs from the table. “But he couldn’t play it that way. Messy business. Old family, too. Settle out of court. That’s my advice. Which, come to think of it, you didn’t ask, did you?”
    “I might have,” Jimmie said, “if I could take it. But we shall go to law, and for a variety of complex reasons. The best I can do for myself right now is find out what I can about the man I’m defending. How did Adkins come into the Ellie True affair?”
    Mumford thought for a moment and then snorted: “Damned if I know how he came in. The way I came to try the case myself was irregular. I was asked to take it by a fraternal organization I belong to. I don’t like getting these holy men. I don’t understand them, and if you can’t pull them out clean as a baby’s tooth, you might as well let go of them. There’s no such thing with juries as mitigating circumstances for fallen angels. Now I have not lost a man to the chair yet.” He rapped heavy knuckles on the table. “And by the Almighty, I didn’t want to do it for charity!”
    Mumford sat back in his