John Holt, twin brother of Jasper Holt, the bank teller, rubbed his eyes
as though he had for hours been absorbed in study, and crawled through
the living room, through the tiny hall, to the front door. He opened it,
picked up a couple of circulars that the postman had dropped through the
letter slot in the door, went out and locked the door behind him. He was
facing a narrow front yard, neater than the willow walk at the back, on
a suburban street more populous than the straggly back lane.
A street arc illuminated the yard and showed that a card was tacked on
the door. John touched the card, snapped it with the nail of his little
finger, to make certain that it was securely tacked. In that light he
could not read it, but he knew that it was inscribed in a small finicky
hand: “Agents kindly do not disturb, bell will not be answered, occupant
of house engaged in literary work.”
John stood on the doorstep till he made out his neighbor on the right—a
large stolid commuter, who was walking before his house smoking an
after-dinner cigar. John poked to the fence and sniffed at a spray of
lilac blossoms till the neighbor called over, “Nice evening.”
“Yes, it seems to be very pleasant.”
John’s voice was like Jasper’s; but it was more guttural, and his speech
had less assurance.
“How’s the book going?”
“It is—it is very—very difficult. So hard to comprehend all the inner
meanings of the prophecies. Well, I must be hastening to Soul Hope Hall.
I trust we shall see you there some Wednesday or Sunday evening. I bid
you good-night, sir.”
John wavered down the street to a drug store. He purchased a bottle of
ink. In a grocery that kept open evenings he got two pounds of corn
meal, two pounds of flour, a pound of bacon, a half pound of butter, six
eggs and a can of condensed milk.
“Shall we deliver them?” asked the clerk.
John looked at him sharply. He realized that this was a new man, who did
not know his customs. He said rebukingly: “No, I always carry my
parcels. I am writing a book. I am never to be disturbed.”
He paid for the provisions out of a postal money order for thirty-five
dollars, and received the change. The cashier of the store was
accustomed to cashing these money orders, which were always sent to John
from South Vernon, by one R. J. Smith. John took the bundle of food and
walked out of the store.
“That fellow’s kind of a nut, isn’t he?” asked the new clerk.
The cashier explained: “Yep. Doesn’t even take fresh milk—uses condensed
for everything! What do you think of that! And they say he burns up all
his garbage—never has anything in the ash can except ashes. If you knock
at his door he never answers it, fellow told me. All the time writing
this book of his. Religious crank, I guess. Has a little income
though—guess his folks were pretty well fixed. Comes out once in a while
in the evening and pokes round town. We used to laugh about him, but
we’ve kind of got used to him. Been here about a year, I guess it is.”
John was serenely passing down the main street of Rosebank. At the
dingier end of it he turned in at a hallway marked by a lighted sign
announcing in crude house-painter’s letters: “Soul Hope Fraternity Hall.
Experience Meeting. All Welcome.”
It was eight o’clock. The members of the Soul Hope cult had gathered in
their hall above a bakery. Theirs was a tiny, tight-minded sect. They
asserted that they alone obeyed the scriptural tenets; that they alone
were certain to be saved; that all other denominations were damned by
unapostolic luxury; that it was wicked to have organs or ministers or
any meeting places save plain halls. The members themselves conducted
the meetings, one after another rising to give an interpretation of the
scriptures or to rejoice in gathering with the faithful, while the
others commented “Hallelujah!” and “Amen, brother, amen!” They were a
plainly dressed, not overfed, rather elderly and rather happy
congregation. The most honored of them all was John Holt.
John had come to Rosebank only six months before. He had bought the
Beaudette house, with the library of the recent occupant, a retired
clergyman, and had paid for them in new one-hundred-dollar bills.
Already he had gained great credit in the Soul Hope cult. It appeared
that he spent almost all his time at home, praying, reading and writing
a book. The Soul Hope Fraternity were excited about the book. They had
begged him to read it to them. So far he had read only a few pages,
consisting mostly of quotations from ancient treatises on the
prophecies. Nearly every Sunday and Wednesday evening he appeared at the
meeting and in a halting but scholarly way lectured on the world and the
flesh.
To-night he spoke polysyllabically of the fact that one Philo Judæus had
been a mere sophist. The cult were none too clear as to what either a
Philo Judæus or a sophist might be, but with heads all nodding in a row,
they murmured: “You’re right, brother! Hallelujah!”
John glided into a sad earnest discourse on his worldly brother Jasper,
and informed them of his struggles with Jasper’s itch for money. By his
request the fraternity prayed for Jasper.
The meeting was over at nine. John shook hands all round with the elders
of the congregation, sighing: “Fine meeting to-night, wasn’t it? Such a
free outpouring of the Spirit!” He welcomed a new member, a servant girl
just come from Seattle. Carrying his groceries and the bottle of ink he
poked down the stairs from the hall at seven minutes after nine.
At sixteen minutes after nine John was stripping off his brown wig and
the funereal clothes in his bedroom. At twenty-eight after, John Holt
had again become Jasper Holt, the capable teller of the Lumber National
Bank.
Jasper Holt left the light burning in his brother’s bedroom. He rushed
downstairs, tried the fastening of the front door, bolted it, made sure
that all the windows were fastened, picked up the bundle of groceries
and the pile of candies that he had removed from the booklike candy
boxes, blew out the light in the living room and ran down the willow
walk to his car. He threw the groceries and candy into it, backed the
car out as though he was accustomed to backing in this bough-scattered
yard, and drove off along the lonely road at the rear.
When he was passing a swamp he reached down, picked up the bundle of
candies, and steering with one hand removed the wrapping paper with the
other hand and hurled out the candies. They showered among the weeds
beside the road. The paper which had contained the candies, and upon
which was printed the name of the Parthenon Confectionery Store, Jasper
tucked into his pocket. He took the groceries item by item from the
labeled bag containing them, thrust that bag also into his pocket, and
laid the groceries on the seat beside him.
On the way from Rosebank to the center of the city of Vernon he again
turned off the main avenue, and halted at a goat-infested shack occupied
by a crippled Norwegian. He sounded the horn. The Norwegian’s grandson
ran out.
“Here’s a little more grub for you,” bawled Jasper.
“God bless you, sir. I don’t know what we’d do if it wasn’t for you!”
cried the old Norwegian from the door.
But Jasper did not wait for gratitude. He merely shouted: “Bring you
some more in a couple days,” as he started away.
At a quarter past ten he drove up to the hall that housed the latest
interest of Vernon society—the Community Theater. The Boulevard Set, the
“best people in town,” belonged to the Community Theater Association,
and the leader of it was the daughter of the general manager of the
railroad. As a well-bred bachelor Jasper Holt was welcome among them,
despite the fact that no one knew much about him except that he was a
good bank teller and had been born in England. But as an actor he was
not merely welcome: he was the best amateur actor in Vernon. His placid
face could narrow with tragic emotion or puff out with comedy; his
placid manner concealed a dynamo of emotion. Unlike most amateur actors
he did not try to act—he became the thing itself. He forgot Jasper Holt,
and turned into a vagrant or a judge, a Bernard Shaw thought, a Lord
Dunsany symbol, a Susan Glaspell radical, a Clyde Fitch man-about-town.
The other one-act plays of the next program of the Community Theater had
already been rehearsed. The cast of the play in which Jasper was to star
were all waiting for him. So were the worried ladies responsible for the
staging. They wanted his advice about the blue curtain for the stage
window, about the baby-spot that was out of order, about the higher
interpretation of the rôle of the page in the piece—a rôle consisting of
only two lines, but to be played by one of the most popular girls in the
younger set. After the discussions, and a most violent quarrel between
two members of the play-reading committee, the rehearsal was called.
Jasper Holt still wore his flannel suit and a wilting carnation; but he
was not Jasper; he was the Duc de San Saba, a cynical, gracious,
gorgeous old man, easy of gesture, tranquil of voice, shudderingly evil
of desire.
“If I could get a few more actors like you!” cried the professional
coach.
The rehearsal was over at half past eleven. Jasper drove his car to the
public garage in which he kept it, and walked home. There, he tore up
and burned the wrapping paper bearing the name of the Parthenon
Confectionery Store and the labeled bag which had contained the
groceries.
The Community Theater plays were given on the following Wednesday.
Jasper Holt was highly applauded, and at the party at the Lakeside
Country Club, after the play, he danced with the prettiest girls in
town. He hadn’t much to say to them, but he danced fervently, and about
him was a halo of artistic success.
That night his brother John did not appear at the meeting of the Soul
Hope Fraternity out in Rosebank.
On Monday, five days later, while he was in conference with the
president and the cashier of the Lumber National Bank, Jasper complained
of a headache. The next day he telephoned to the president that he would
not come down to work—he would stay home and rest his eyes, sleep and
get rid of the persistent headache. That was unfortunate, for that very
day his twin brother John made one of his infrequent trips into Vernon
and called at the bank.
The president had seen John only once before, and by a coincidence it
had happened that on this occasion also Jasper had been absent—had been
out of town. The president invited John into his private office.
“Your brother is at home; poor fellow has a bad headache. Hope he gets
over it. We think a great deal of him here. You ought to be proud of
him. Will you have a smoke?”
As he spoke the president looked John over. Once or twice when Jasper
and the president had been out at lunch Jasper had spoken of the
remarkable resemblance between himself and his twin brother. But the
president told himself that he didn’t really see much resemblance. The
features of the two were alike, but John’s expression of chronic
spiritual indigestion, his unfriendly manner, and his hair—unkempt and
lifeless brown, where Jasper’s was sleekly black above a shiny bald
spot—made the president dislike John as much as he liked Jasper.
And now John was replying: “No, I do not smoke. I can’t understand how a
man can soil this temple with drugs. I suppose I ought to be glad to
hear you praise poor Jasper, but I am more concerned with his lack of
respect for the things of the spirit. He sometimes comes to see me, at
Rosebank, and I argue with him, but somehow I can’t make him see his
errors. And his flippant ways—!”
“We don’t think he’s flippant. We think he’s a pretty steady worker.”
“But his play-acting! And reading love stories! Well, I try to keep in
mind the injunction ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ But I am pained
to find my own brother giving up immortal promises for mortal
amusements. Well, I’ll go and call on him. I trust that some day we
shall see you at Soul Hope Hall, in Rosebank. Good day, sir.”
Turning back to his work the president grumbled: “I’m going to tell
Jasper that the best compliment I can hand him is that he is not like
his brother.”
And on the following day, another Wednesday, when Jasper reappeared at
the bank, the president did make this jesting comparison; and Jasper
sighed: “Oh, John is really a good fellow, but he’s always gone in for
metaphysics and Oriental mysticism and Lord knows what all, till he’s
kind of lost in the fog. But he’s a lot better than I am. When I murder
my landlady—or say, when I rob the bank, chief—you go get John; and I
bet you the best lunch in town that he’ll do his best to bring me to
justice. That’s how blame square he is!”
“Square, yes—corners just sticking out! Well, when you do rob us,
Jasper, I’ll look up John. But do try to keep from robbing us as long as
you can. I’d hate to have to associate with a religious detective in a
boiled shirt!”
Both men laughed, and Jasper went back to his cage. His head continued
to hurt, he admitted. The president advised him to lay off for a week.
He didn’t want to, he said. With the new munition industries due to the
war in Europe, there was much increase in factory pay rolls, and Jasper
took charge of them.
“Better take a week off than get ill,” argued the president late that
afternoon.
Jasper did let himself be persuaded to go away for at least a week-end.
He would run up north, to Wakamin Lake, the coming Friday, he said; he
would get some black-bass fishing, and be back on Monday or Tuesday.
Before he went he would make up the pay rolls for the Saturday payments
and turn them over to the other teller. The president thanked him for
his faithfulness, and as was his not infrequent custom invited Jasper to
his house for the evening of the next day—Thursday.
That Wednesday evening Jasper’s brother John appeared at the Soul Hope
meeting in Rosebank. When he had gone home and had magically turned back
into Jasper this Jasper did not return the wig and garments of John to
the bureau but packed them into a suitcase, took the suitcase to his
room in Vernon and locked it in his wardrobe.
Jasper was amiable at dinner at the president’s house on Thursday, but
he was rather silent, and as his head still throbbed he left the house
early—at nine-thirty. Sedately, carrying his gray silk gloves in one
hand and pompously swinging his stick with the other, he walked from the
president’s house on the fashionable boulevard back to the center of
Vernon. He entered the public garage in which his car was stored.
He commented to the night attendant: “Head aches. Guess I’ll take the
’bus out and get some fresh air.”
He drove away at not more than fifteen miles an hour. He headed south.
When he had reached the outskirts of the city he speeded up to a
consistent twenty-five miles an hour. He settled down in his seat with
the unmoving steadiness of the long-distance driver: his body quiet
except for the tiny subtle movements of his foot on the accelerator, of
his hands on the steering wheel—his right hand across the wheel, holding
it at the top, his left elbow resting easily on the cushioned edge of
his seat and his left hand merely touching the wheel.
He drove in that southern direction for fifteen miles—almost to the town
of Wanagoochie. Then by a rather poor side road he turned sharply to the
north and west, and making a huge circle about the city drove toward the
town of St. Clair. The suburb of Rosebank, in which his brother John
lived, is also north of Vernon. These directions were of some importance
to him: Wanagoochie eighteen miles south of the mother city of Vernon;
Rosebank, on the other hand, north, eight miles north, of Vernon; and
St. Clair twenty miles north—about as far north of Vernon as Wanagoochie
is south.
On his way to St. Clair, at a point that was only two miles from
Rosebank, Jasper ran the car off the main road into a grove of oaks and
maples and stopped it on a long-unused woodland road. He stiffly got out
and walked through the woods up a rise of ground to a cliff overlooking
a swampy lake. The gravelly farther bank of the cliff rose
perpendicularly from the edge of the water. In that wan light distilled
by stars and the earth he made out the reedy expanse of the lake. It was
so muddy, so tangled with sedge grass that it was never used for
swimming; and as its only inhabitants were slimy bullheads few people
ever tried to fish there. Jasper stood reflective. He was remembering
the story of the farmer’s team which had run away, dashed over this
cliff and sunk out of sight in the mud bottom of the lake.
Swishing his stick he outlined an imaginary road from the top of the
cliff back to the sheltered place where his car was standing. Once he
hacked away with a large pocketknife a mass of knotted hazel bushes
which blocked that projected road. When he had traced the road to his
car he smiled. He walked to the edge of the woods and looked up and down
the main highway. A car was approaching. He waited till it had passed,
ran back to his own car, backed it out on the highway, and went on his
northward course toward St. Clair, driving about thirty miles an hour.
On the edge of St. Clair he halted, took out his kit of tools, unscrewed
a spark plug, and sharply tapping the plug on the engine block,
deliberately cracked the porcelain jacket. He screwed the plug in again
and started the car. It bucked and spit, missing on one cylinder, with
the short-circuited plug.
“I guess there must be something wrong with the ignition,” he said
cheerfully.
He managed to run the car into a garage in St. Clair. There was no one
in the garage save an old negro, the night washer, who was busy over a
limousine, with sponge and hose.
“Got a night repair man here?” asked Jasper.
“No, sir; guess you’ll have to leave it till morning.”
“Hang it! Something gone wrong with the carburetor or the ignition.
Well, I’ll have to leave it, then. Tell him— Say, will you be here in
the morning when the repair man comes on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, tell him I must have the car by to-morrow noon. No, say by
to-morrow at nine. Now, don’t forget. This will help your memory.”
He gave a quarter to the negro, who grinned and shouted: “Yes, sir;
that’ll help my memory a lot!” As he tied a storage tag on the car the
negro inquired: “Name?”
“Uh—my name? Oh, Hanson. Remember now, ready about nine to-morrow.”
Jasper walked to the railroad station. It was ten minutes of one. Jasper
did not ask the night operator about the next train into Vernon.
Apparently he knew that there was a train stopping here at St. Clair at
one-thirty-seven. He did not sit in the waiting room but in the darkness
outside on a truck behind the baggage room. When the train came in he
slipped into the last seat of the last car, and with his soft hat over
his eyes either slept or appeared to sleep. When he reached Vernon he
went off the direct route from the station to his boarding house, and
came to the garage in which he regularly kept his car. He stepped
inside. The night attendant was drowsing in a large wooden chair tilted
back against the wall in the narrow runway which formed the entrance to
the garage.
Jasper jovially shouted to the attendant: “Certainly ran into some hard
luck. Ignition went wrong—I guess it was the ignition. Had to leave the
car down at Wanagoochie.”
“Yuh, hard luck, all right,” assented the attendant.
“Yump. So I left it at Wanagoochie,” Jasper emphasized as he passed on.
He had been inexact in this statement. It was not at Wanagoochie, which
is south, but at St. Clair, which is north, that he had left the car.
He returned to his boarding house, slept beautifully, hummed in his
morning shower bath. Yet at breakfast he complained to his landlady of
his continuous headache, and announced that he was going to run up
north, to Wakamin, to get some bass fishing and rest his eyes. She urged
him to go.
“Anything I can do to help you get away?” she queried.
“No, thanks. I’m just taking a couple of suitcases, with some old
clothes and some fishing tackle. Fact, I have ’em all packed already.
I’ll probably take the noon train north if I can get away from the bank.
Pretty busy now, with these pay rolls for the factories that have war
contracts for the Allies. What’s it say in the paper this morning?”
Jasper arrived at the bank, carrying the two suitcases and a neat,
polite, rolled silk umbrella, the silver top of which was engraved with
his name. The doorman, who was also the bank guard, helped him to carry
the suitcases inside.
“Careful of that bag. Got my fishing tackle in it,” said Jasper to the
doorman, apropos of one of the suitcases, which was heavy but apparently
not packed full. “Well, I think I’ll run up to Wakamin to-day and catch
a few bass.”
“Wish I could go along, sir. How is the head this morning? Does it still
ache?” asked the doorman.
“Rather better, but my eyes still feel pretty rocky. Guess I been using
’em too much. Say, Connors, I’ll try to catch the train north at
eleven-seven. Better have a taxicab here for me at eleven. Or no; I’ll
let you know a little before eleven. Try to catch the eleven-seven
north, for Wakamin.”
“Very well, sir.”
The president, the assistant cashier, the chief clerk—all asked Jasper
how he felt; and to all of them he repeated the statement that he had
been using his eyes too much, and that he would catch a few bass at
Wakamin.
The other paying teller from his cage next to that of Jasper called
heartily through the steel netting: “Pretty soft for some people! You
wait! I’m going to have the hay fever this summer, and I’ll go fishing
for a month!”
Jasper placed the two suitcases and the umbrella in his cage, and
leaving the other teller to pay out current money he himself made up the
pay rolls for the next day—Saturday. He casually went into the vault—a
narrow, unimpressive, unaired cell, with a hard linoleum floor, one
unshaded electric bulb, and a back wall composed entirely of steel doors
of safes, all painted a sickly blue, very unimpressive, but guarding
several millions of dollars in cash and securities. The upper doors,
hung on large steel arms and each provided with two dials, could be
opened only by two officers of the bank, each knowing one of the two
combinations. Below these were smaller doors, one of which Jasper could
open, as teller. It was the door of an insignificant steel box, which
contained one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars in bills and four
thousand dollars in gold and silver.
Jasper passed back and forth, carrying bundles of currency. In his cage
he was working less than three feet from the other teller, who was
divided from him only by the bands of the steel netting.
While he worked he exchanged a few words with this other teller.
Once as he counted out nineteen thousand dollars he commented: “Big pay
roll for the Henschel Wagon Works this week. They’re making gun
carriages and truck bodies for the Allies, I understand.”
“Uh-huh!” said the other teller, not much interested.
Mechanically, unobtrusively going about his ordinary routine of
business, Jasper counted out bills to amounts agreeing with the items on
a typed schedule of the pay rolls. Apparently his eyes never lifted from
his counting and from this typed schedule which lay before him. The
bundles of bills he made into packages, fastening each with a paper
band. Each bundle he seemed to drop into a small black leather bag which
he held beside him. But he did not actually drop the money into these
pay-roll bags.
Both the suitcases at his feet were closed, and presumably fastened; but
one was not fastened. And though it was heavy it contained nothing but a
lump of pig iron. From time to time Jasper’s hand, holding a bundle of
bills, dropped to his side. With a slight movement of his foot he opened
that suitcase, and the bills slipped from his hand down into it.
The bottom part of his cage was a solid sheet of stamped steel, and from
the front of the bank no one could see this suspicious gesture. The
other teller could have seen it, but Jasper dropped the bills only when
the other teller was busy talking to a customer or when his back was
turned. In order to delay for such a favorable moment Jasper frequently
counted packages of bills twice, rubbing his eyes as though they hurt
him.
After each of these secret disposals of packages of bills Jasper made
much of dropping into the pay-roll bags the rolls of coin for which the
schedule called. It was while he was tossing these blue-wrapped
cylinders of coin into the bags that he would chat with the other
teller. Then he would lock up the bags and gravely place them at one
side.
Jasper was so slow in making up the pay rolls that it was five minutes
of eleven before he finished. He called the doorman to the cage and
suggested: “Better call my taxi now.”
He still had one bag to fill. He could plainly be seen dropping packages
of money into it, while he instructed the assistant teller: “I’ll stick
all the bags in my safe, and you can transfer them to yours. Be sure to
lock my safe. Lord, I better hurry or I’ll miss my train! Be back
Tuesday morning, at latest. So long; take care of yourself.”
He hastened to pile the pay-roll bags into his safe in the vault. The
safe was almost filled with them. And except for the last one not one of
the bags contained anything except a few rolls of coin. Though he had
told the other teller to lock his safe he himself twirled the
combination—which was thoughtless of him, as the assistant teller would
now have to wait and get the president to unlock it.
He picked up his umbrella and the two suitcases—bending over one of the
cases for not more than ten seconds. Waving good-by to the cashier at
his desk down front and hurrying so fast that the doorman did not have a
chance to help him carry the suitcases he rushed through the bank,
through the door, into the waiting taxicab, and loudly enough for the
doorman to hear he cried to the driver, “M. & D. Station.”
At the M. & D. R. R. Station, refusing offers of redcaps to carry his
bags, he bought a ticket for Wakamin, which is a lake-resort town one
hundred and forty miles northwest of Vernon, hence one hundred and
twenty beyond St. Clair. He had just time to get aboard the eleven-seven
train. He did not take a chair car, but sat in a day coach near the rear
door. He unscrewed the silver top of his umbrella, on which was engraved
his name, and dropped it into his pocket.
When the train reached St. Clair, Jasper strolled out to the vestibule,
carrying the suitcases but leaving the topless umbrella behind. His face
was blank, uninterested. As the train started he dropped down on the
station platform and gravely walked away. For a second the light of
adventure crossed his face, and vanished.
At the garage at which he had left his car on the evening before he
asked the foreman: “Did you get my car fixed—Mercury roadster, ignition
on the bum?”
“Nope! Couple of jobs ahead of it. Haven’t had time to touch it yet.
Ought to get at it early this afternoon.”
Jasper curled his tongue round his lips in startled vexation. He dropped
his suitcases on the floor of the garage and stood thinking, his bent
forefinger against his lower lip.
Then: “Well, I guess I can get her to go—sorry—can’t wait—got to make
the next town,” he grumbled.
“Lot of you traveling salesmen making your territory by motor now, Mr.
Hanson,” said the foreman civilly, glancing at the storage check on
Jasper’s car.
“Yep. I can make a good many more than I could by train.”
He paid for overnight storage without complaining, though since his car
had not been repaired this charge was unjust. In fact he was altogether
prosaic and inconspicuous. He thrust the suitcases into the car and
drove out, the motor spitting. At another garage he bought a new spark
plug and screwed it in. When he went on, the motor had ceased spitting.
He drove out of St. Clair, back in the direction of Vernon—and of
Rosebank, where his brother lived. He ran the car into that thick grove
of oaks and maples only two miles from Rosebank where he had paced off
an imaginary road to the cliff overhanging the reedy lake. He parked the
car in a grassy space beside the abandoned woodland road. He laid a
light robe over the suitcases. From beneath the seat he took a can of
deviled chicken, a box of biscuits, a canister of tea, a folding cooking
kit and a spirit lamp. These he spread on the grass—a picnic lunch.
He sat beside that lunch from seven minutes past one in the afternoon
till dark. Once in a while he made a pretense of eating. He fetched
water from a brook, made tea, opened the box of biscuits and the can of
chicken. But mostly he sat still and smoked cigarette after cigarette.
Once a Swede, taking this road as a short cut to his truck farm, passed
by and mumbled “Picnic, eh?”
“Yuh, takin’ a day off,” said Jasper dully.
The man went on without looking back.
At dusk Jasper finished a cigarette down to the tip, crushed out the
light and made the cryptic remark: “That’s probably Jasper Holt’s last
smoke. I don’t suppose you can smoke, John—damn you!”
He hid the two suitcases in the bushes, piled the remains of the lunch
into the car, took down the top of the car and crept down to the main
road. No one was in sight. He returned. He snatched a hammer and a
chisel from his tool kit, and with a few savage cracks he so defaced the
number of the car stamped on the engine block that it could not be made
out. He removed the license numbers from fore and aft, and placed them
beside the suitcases. Then, when there was just enough light to see the
bushes as cloudy masses, he started the car, drove through the woods and
up the incline to the top of the cliff, and halted, leaving the engine
running.
Between the car and the edge of the cliff which overhung the lake there
was a space of about a hundred and thirty feet, fairly level and covered
with straggly red clover. Jasper paced off this distance, returned to
the car, took his seat in a nervous, tentative way, and put her into
gear, starting on second speed and slamming her into third. The car
bolted toward the edge of the cliff. He instantly swung out on the
running board. Standing there, headed directly toward the sharp drop
over the cliff, steering with his left hand on the wheel, he shoved the
hand throttle up—up—up with his right. He safely leaped down from the
running board.
Of itself the car rushed forward, roaring. It shot over the edge of the
cliff. It soared twenty feet out into the air as though it were a
thick-bodied aëroplane. It turned over and over, with a sickening drop
toward the lake. The water splashed up in a tremendous noisy circle.
Then silence. In the twilight the surface of the lake shone like milk.
There was no sign of the car on the surface. The concentric rings died
away. The lake was secret and sinister and still. “Lord!” ejaculated
Jasper, standing on the cliff; then: “Well, they won’t find that for a
couple of years anyway.”
He returned to the suitcases. Squatting beside them he took from one the
wig and black garments of John Holt. He stripped, put on the clothes of
John, and packed those of Jasper in the bag. With the cases and the
motor-license plates he walked toward Rosebank, keeping in various
groves of maples and willows till he was within half a mile of the town.
He reached the stone house at the end of the willow walk, and sneaked in
the back way. He burned Jasper Holt’s clothes in the grate, melted down
the license plates in the stove, and between two rocks he smashed
Jasper’s expensive watch and fountain pen into an unpleasant mass of
junk, which he dropped into the cistern for rain water. The silver head
of the umbrella he scratched with a chisel till the engraved name was
indistinguishable.
He unlocked a section of the bookcase and taking a number of packages of
bills in denominations of one, five, ten and twenty dollars from one of
the suitcases he packed them into those empty candy boxes which, on the
shelves, looked so much like books. As he stored them he counted the
bills. They came to ninety-seven thousand five hundred and thirty-five
dollars.
The two suitcases were new. There were no distinguishing marks on them.
But taking them out to the kitchen he kicked them, rubbed them with
lumps of blacking, raveled their edges and cut their sides, till they
gave the appearance of having been long and badly used in traveling. He
took them upstairs and tossed them up into the low attic.
In his bedroom he undressed calmly. Once he laughed: “I despise those
pretentious fools—bank officers and cops. I’m beyond their fool law. No
one can catch me—it would take me myself to do that!”
He got into bed. With a vexed “Hang it!” he mused: “I suppose John would
pray, no matter how chilly the floor was.”
He got out of bed and from the inscrutable Lord of the Universe he
sought forgiveness—not for Jasper Holt, but for the denominations who
lacked the true faith of Soul Hope Fraternity.
He returned to bed and slept till the middle of the morning, lying with
his arms behind his head, a smile on his face.
Thus did Jasper Holt, without the mysterious pangs of death, yet cease
to exist, and thus did John Holt come into being not merely as an
apparition glimpsed on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, but as a being
living twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.