At the bank down in the village--well, at nine o'clock Mortimer, feeling
the virtue of early effort, with the money of redemption in his pocket,
entered into the resumption of his duties. At the earliest moment after
the vault was opened he made his way to the box that contained
the Porter payment. One thing troubled him slightly. It was a
thousand-dollar bill that had been taken; the money he had to replace
was in hundreds and fifties. As he slipped them quietly into the box he
thought it wouldn't really matter; he would transfer the three thousand
to the account himself, and nobody would know of the change. Leaving the
box where it was for a little, in the way of subtle strategy, he came
out and busied himself over other matters.
To Mortimer's slight astonishment, presently the cashier, Mr. Lane,
came out from his office, and speaking somewhat carelessly, said: “Mr.
Mortimer, you have that Porter note and money in charge. It is due
today, isn't it?”
Looking up, Mortimer saw Lane's eye fixed upon his face with piercing
intensity. He flushed out of sheer nervousness.
“Yes, sir,” he stammered, “it is. I'll attend to it at once.”
“Ah!” there was a peculiar drawl in the cashier's voice as he spoke;
“ah, I had a communication from Mr. Porter yesterday, asking if the note
had been paid.”
Mortimer felt his knees shake-something was choking hire. Had the
devil of mischance taken the salvation of Alan's good name out of his
hands--had his work been for nothing.
“I couldn't understand it,” went on the cashier. His voice sounded like
the clang of a fire bell to the listening man, though it was evenly
modulated, cold and steady in its methodical precision. “I thought
Porter knew the money was here to meet the note,” said Lane, still
speaking, “but my attention being called to the matter, I looked up the
papers. I found one thousand dollars missing!” He was looking steadily
at Mortimer; his eyes were searching the young man's very soul. There
was accusation, denunciation, abhorrence in the cashier's gaze.
Mortimer did not speak. He was trying to think. His brain worked in
erratic futility. The slangy babble of Old Bill thrust itself upon him;
the roar of the race course was in his ears, deadening his senses; not
a sane, relevant word rose to his lips. He was like a child stricken by
fear. In an indistinct way he felt the dishonor that was Alan Porter's
being given to him. The cashier waited for Mortimer to say something;
then he spoke again, with reproach in his voice.
“I at once sent a messenger to ask you to return from your home at
Emerson to clear up this matter; he discovered that you had not
been there; that your mother was not ill. May I ask where you were
yesterday?”
“I was at Gravesend, sir--at the races,” answered Mortimer, defiantly.
This speech broke the lethargy that was over him; his mind cleared--he
commenced to think sanely.
“Can you tell me,” proceeded Lane, “where the balance of Mr. Porter's
three thousand dollars is?”
“It's in the box.”
“That's a--it is not.”
“It's in the box,” repeated Mortimer, firmly.
“We can soon settle that point,” declared the cashier, going hurriedly
into the vault and reappearing instantly with the box in his hand.
He opened it and stared at the package of bills that rose up when
freed from the pressure of the lid. With nervous fingers he counted the
contents.
“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed in a quick, jerky way. “The three
thousand dollars is here, but these bills have been put in the box this
morning; they were not there last night. It is not the money that was
taken away, either. That was one bill, a thousand-dollar note; and
here are”--he counted them again--“six one hundreds and eight fifties,
besides the original two of one thousand. You put those notes back, Mr.
Mortimer,” he said, tapping the desk with two fingers of the right hand.
“I did.”
“And you took the money yesterday or the day before?”
“I did not.”
“Ah!” Lane repeated in a drier, more severe tone than he had used
before. This “Ah” of the cashier's, with its many gradations of tone,
had been a most useful weapon in his innumerable financial battles. It
could be made to mean anything--everything; flung out at haphazard it
always caught his opponent off guard; it was a subtle thrust, and while
one pondered over its possible meaning, Lane could formulate in his mind
more decisive expressions.
“Ah,” he repeated, adding, “if you did not steal the money, who did? And
if you did not take it, why did you put it back?”
With an expressive sweep of the hand outward the cashier stood waiting,
his tall, narrow head, topped by carefully brushed gray hair, thrust
forward in the attitude of a parrot about to strike with its beak.
“I can't answer those questions,” answered the man he was grilling. “The
money to pay Mr. Porter's note is here; and I fancy that is all the
bank needs to concern itself about. It was entrusted to me, and now I am
prepared to turn it over.”
“Quite true; ah, yes, quite true; but it might have been vastly
different. That is the point that most concerns the bank. Whoever took
the money”--and he bowed, deprecatingly, with ironical consideration
to Mortimer--“must have needed a thousand dollars for--well, some
speculative purpose, perhaps. Good fortune has enabled the some one to
make good, and the money has been replaced.”
The cashier straightened up, threw his head back, and actually smiled.
He had scored linguistically--by a clever manipulation of the sentence
he had made the some one who had stolen the money the some one who who
had replaced it. That was accusation by inference, if you like. As the
other did not speak, Lane added: “I will wire for Mr. Crane to come at
once; this is a matter for investigation.”
Mortimer bowed his head in acquiesence; what could he say--what other
stand could the bank take?
“You might remain at your desk,” the cashier said, “if there is any
mistake we'll discover it, no doubt.”
Mortimer felt like one dead, indeed as a dishonored man he were better
dead. The bank was like a mausoleum, and he a lost spirit haunting
its precincts in quest of the undefiled body that had been his but
yesterday. Cass, the teller, certainly shunned him as he would a leper.
Lane, vindictively pleased that he had unearthed the villain, drew his
small soul into a shell of cold, studious politeness; much as a sea
spider might house his unpleasant body in a discarded castle of pink and
white.
Alan Porter was late--he had not come yet. Mortimer waited in suffering
suspense for his appearance. What would come of it all. Now that the
money was replaced, if the boy admitted his guilt to Crane, probably no
further action would be taken, but he would be dishonored in the sight
of his employer. Mortimer had sought to avert this; had not denounced
Alan in the first instance; by good fortune had been able to replace
the money; even now had refused to divulge the name of the thief. He was
well aware of the mass of circumstantial evidence, the outcome of his
own hurried actions, that pointed to himself as the guilty one. Better
this than that he should denounce the boy. Dishonor to the lad might
kill his father; for Mortimer was well aware of the doctor's edict. And
Allis, the girl he loved as his life, would hang her head in shame for
evermore. He was anxious to see Alan before the cashier did; he did not
want the boy to deny taking the money at first, as he might do if he
were unaware of the circumstances; it would place him in a wrong light.
Just before twelve Alan Porter came hurriedly in. He had missed his
train the night before, he explained in a general way to all. Mortimer
stepped up to him almost at once, speaking with low, earnest rapidity;
the cashier was in his own office and Mr. Cass was not within earshot.
“I put the money back, but its loss had been discovered yesterday. I
have been accused of taking it, but have denied it, accusing no one. I
want you to say that you borrowed it, thinking it no great harm, as it
was your father's money.”
Alan would have interrupted him, but Mortimer said, “Wait till I
finish;” and then continued: “There will be nothing done to you, I feel
sure, if you will take this stand, because of your father's connection
with Crane. It will save me from dishonor--”
“Mr. Porter.”
It was the cashier's voice of Damascus steel cutting in on Mortimer's
low, pleading tones.
Alan turned his head, and Mr. Lane, beckoning, said, “Will you step into
my office for a minute?”
The cashier's one minute drew its weary length into thirty; and when
Alan Porter came out again, Mortimer saw the boy sought to avoid him.
Had he denied taking the money? My God! the full horror of Mortimer's
hopeless position flashed upon him like the lurid light of a destroying
forest fire. He could read in every line of the boy's face an accusation
of himself. He had trembled when it was a question of Alan's dishonor;
now that the ignominy was being thrust upon him, the bravery that he
possessed in great part made him a hero. If through his endeavor to
save the boy he was to shoulder the guilt, not of his own volition, but
without hope of escape, he would stand to it like a man. What would it
profit him to denounce the boy.
Harking back with rapidity over his actions, and Alan's, he saw that
everything implicated him. Once he thought of his mother and wavered;
but she would believe him if he said he had not committed this dreadful
crime. But all the world of Brookfield would despise the name of her
son if it were thought that he had sought to testify falsely against his
friend. And was not Alan the brother of Allis?
Mentally his argument, his analysis of the proper course to pursue was
tortuous, not definable, or to be explained in concise phraseology; but
the one thought that rose paramount over all others was, that he must
take his iniquitous punishment like a man. He had fought so strongly
to shield the brother of the girl he loved that the cause in all its
degradation had accrued to him.
At one o'clock the president, Crane, arrived from New York, and in him
was bitterness because of his yesterday's defeat. He had sat nearly the
whole night through mentally submerged in the double happening that had
swept many men from the chess board. Lauzanne, the despised, had kept
from his hand a small fortune, even when his fingers seemed tightening
on the coin, too. That was one happening. John Porter had gained over
twenty thousand dollars. This made him quite independent of Crane's
financial bolstering. The Banker's diplomacy of love had been weakened.
That was the other happening.
Crane was closeted with the cashier not more than ten minutes when
Mortimer was asked to join the two men who had so suddenly become deeply
interested in his affairs.
The cashier's hand had been strengthened by Crane's contribution of
evidence. Mortimer had told the same falsehood about his mother being
ill to him at the race course. From Alan the cashier had learned that
Mortimer had been betting heavily; he had admitted to the boy that he
had won enough to replace the thousand dollars he had stolen. Mortimer's
words had been contorted into that reading in their journey through
two personalities. He had even begged young Porter not to speak of
his betting transactions. He had denied taking the money--that was but
natural; he had been forced to admit replacing it--that was conclusive.
Indeed it seemed a waste of time to investigate further; it was utterly
impossible to doubt his guilt. Mesh by mesh, like an enthralling net,
all the different threads of convicting circumstances were drawn about
the accused man.
“Let us question him?” said Crane; and in his heart was not sorrow,
nor hate, nor compassion, nor anything but just joy. Greater than the
influence of money in his love ambition would be this degradation, this
reducing to a felon a man he felt stood between him and Allis Porter.
Yesterday they had won; to-day victory, almost, to him had come. Yes,
bring the deliverer in; he would feast his eyes, the narrow-lidded
eyes, upon the man whose young love might have conquered over all his
diplomacy, and who would go forth from his hands branded as a felon.
The probing of the already condemned man elicited nothing beyond a
repeated denial of theft. With the precision of Mam'selle Guillotine,
Cashier Lane lopped off everything that could possibly stand in
Mortimer's defense, grafting into the cleaved places individual facts
which confirmed his guilt. Mortimer contended nothing, threw suspicion
upon no one. Was it Alan Porter? Was it Cass?--but that was impossible.
Was it the cashier himself? Still more impossible. Mortimer answered
nothing. He had not taken the money. Yes, he had replaced it--because he
was responsible for its custody.
“Can't you see,” cried Crane, impatiently, “that this simple denial
of yours is of no value as against so much that points to your--” he
hesitated--“your implication?”