Can't you hear him suggesting this?
Can't you see him?
"George W. Stener was a poor man, comparatively a very poor man, when he first became city treasurer.
All he had was a small real-estate and insurance business which brought him in, say, twenty-five hundred dollars a year.
He had a wife and four children to support, and he had never had the slightest taste of what for him might be called luxury or comfort.
Then comes Mr. Cowperwood—at his request, to be sure, but on an errand which held no theory of evil gains in Mr. Stener's mind at the time—and proposes his grand scheme of manipulating all the city loan to their mutual advantage.
Do you yourselves think, gentlemen, from what you have seen of George W. Stener here on the witness-stand, that it was he who proposed this plan of ill-gotten wealth to that gentleman over there?"
He pointed to Cowperwood.
"Does he look to you like a man who would be able to tell that gentleman anything about finance or this wonderful manipulation that followed?
I ask you, does he look clever enough to suggest all the subtleties by which these two subsequently made so much money?
Why, the statement of this man Cowperwood made to his creditors at the time of his failure here a few weeks ago showed that he considered himself to be worth over one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he is only a little over thirty-four years old to-day.
How much was he worth at the time he first entered business relations with the ex-city treasurer?
Have you any idea?
I can tell.
I had the matter looked up almost a month ago on my accession to office.
Just a little over two hundred thousand dollars, gentlemen—just a little over two hundred thousand dollars.
Here is an abstract from the files of Dun & Company for that year.
Now you can see how rapidly our Caesar has grown in wealth since then.
You can see how profitable these few short years have been to him.
Was George W. Stener worth any such sum up to the time he was removed from his office and indicted for embezzlement? Was he?
I have here a schedule of his liabilities and assets made out at the time.
You can see it for yourselves, gentlemen.
Just two hundred and twenty thousand dollars measured the sum of all his property three weeks ago; and it is an accurate estimate, as I have reason to know.
Why was it, do you suppose, that Mr. Cowperwood grew so fast in wealth and Mr. Stener so slowly?
They were partners in crime.
Mr. Stener was loaning Mr. Cowperwood vast sums of the city's money at two per cent. when call-rates for money in Third Street were sometimes as high as sixteen and seventeen per cent.
Don't you suppose that Mr. Cowperwood sitting there knew how to use this very cheaply come-by money to the very best advantage?
Does he look to you as though he didn't?
You have seen him on the witness-stand.
You have heard him testify.
Very suave, very straightforward-seeming, very innocent, doing everything as a favor to Mr. Stener and his friends, of course, and yet making a million in a little over six years and allowing Mr. Stener to make one hundred and sixty thousand dollars or less, for Mr. Stener had some little money at the time this partnership was entered into—a few thousand dollars."
Shannon now came to the vital transaction of October 9th, when Cowperwood called on Stener and secured the check for sixty thousand dollars from Albert Stires.
His scorn for this (as he appeared to think) subtle and criminal transaction was unbounded.
It was plain larceny, stealing, and Cowperwood knew it when he asked Stires for the check.
"Think of it! [Shannon exclaimed, turning and looking squarely at Cowperwood, who faced him quite calmly, undisturbed and unashamed.] Think of it!
Think of the colossal nerve of the man—the Machiavellian subtlety of his brain.
He knew he was going to fail.
He knew after two days of financial work—after two days of struggle to offset the providential disaster which upset his nefarious schemes—that he had exhausted every possible resource save one, the city treasury, and that unless he could compel aid there he was going to fail.
He already owed the city treasury five hundred thousand dollars. He had already used the city treasurer as a cat's-paw so much, had involved him so deeply, that the latter, because of the staggering size of the debt, was becoming frightened.
Did that deter Mr. Cowperwood?
Not at all."
He shook his finger ominously in Cowperwood's face, and the latter turned irritably away.
"He is showing off for the benefit of his future," he whispered to Steger.
"I wish you could tell the jury that."
"I wish I could," replied Steger, smiling scornfully, "but my hour is over."
"Why [continued Mr. Shannon, turning once more to the jury], think of the colossal, wolfish nerve that would permit a man to say to Albert Stires that he had just purchased sixty thousand dollars' worth additional of city loan, and that he would then and there take the check for it!
Had he actually purchased this city loan as he said he had?
Who can tell?
Could any human being wind through all the mazes of the complicated bookkeeping system which he ran, and actually tell?
The best answer to that is that if he did purchase the certificates he intended that it should make no difference to the city, for he made no effort to put the certificates in the sinking-fund, where they belonged.