Chapter 18: The Society Rebuilt

The reorganization proposal was implemented in the year following the trial. Merriweather, who had more energy than his age suggested he should, spent the better part of six months shepherding it through the Society's membership. There was resistance — there was always resistance — from the commercial-minded members who had been aligned with Harwick without being involved in the fraud, who saw the restructuring as ideological overcorrection. The proposal's governance structure was its strongest element: it separated the Society's technical library from its financial assets and placed the library under a trust whose charter required unanimous board consent for any licensing agreement. Single member veto. It was effectively unlicensable without the enthusiastic agreement of the entire Society leadership. Harwick's faction objected to this strenuously. Merriweather pointed out, with the patience of someone who had been doing this for thirty years, that the previous governance structure had resulted in one member being murdered and another barely avoiding prison, and that if the faction had a better proposal for preventing a recurrence, the floor was theirs. The faction did not have a better proposal. The reorganization passed. Crane attended the meeting where the vote was taken, at Merriweather's invitation. The second chess player was on a table at the back of the room — Van Cleef had come to London for the occasion and had completed the instruction set, which was the completion of what Mrs. Farquhar had started. At the end of the meeting, the chess player played a game against Merriweather and won. Merriweather lost graciously and said, to the room: 'She would have found that appropriate.' Several people laughed. Several people did not.