About the calls that went unanswered.” He paused.

“All of that would become public record.

It would be read aloud.

It would be reported.

I would advise you, very strongly, to consider what that would do.”

And there it was, the one thing Arthur Vance truly feared, laid on the desk beside his mother’s letter.

Not the loss of the money; he had plenty of money.

What he could not survive was the story.