IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO.
Amid the anxious bustle that filled the office Terry sat at his desk
with strange and perplexing thoughts coursing through his brain. He
had seen the bag just for one moment as Mr. Drummond was hastily
throwing it into his desk. So far as he knew, only Mr. Hobart and
himself, of the office staff, had any knowledge of its existence. That
Mr. Hobart should have taken it was a notion so absurd that his mind
refused to entertain it for an instant. His kind friend was to him the
incarnation of every human virtue, and Terry would have resented hotly
the insinuation that he could possibly be guilty of any such
wrong-doing.
Who, then, could be the thief? As he looked about the office, glancing
from one to the other of the countenances of the clerks, all of whom,
laying aside their work for the time, were exchanging conjectures as to
how the robbery had been managed, his eyes seemed drawn irresistibly
towards Morley.
The latter was not at his own desk, but stood near the window looking
out, as though not particularly interested in the earnest discussion,
yet every now and then he gave a glance towards the group which showed
that he was listening intently to all they said.
It was his expression when he did this which impressed Terry. It had a
blending of anxiety, bravado, and cunning triumph that could not fail
to provoke curiosity, if not to arouse suspicion, in so keen an
observer.
Once he caught Terry studying him, and instantly his face flushed with
anger, and he gave back such a vicious scowl that Terry, apprehensive
of an outburst, took care not to meet his glance again.
Mr. Hobart had been in the inside office again for some time, when he
came out, seeming more troubled than ever, and beckoned Terry to him.
"Mr. Drummond wants to see you," he said, "although I told him you
couldn't know anything about it."
In no small perturbation Terry entered the sanctum. The two partners
were sitting at their desks, both evidently greatly disturbed by what
had happened.
"Did you see anything of the bag that has been stolen, Terry?" asked
Mr. Drummond abruptly.
Terry hesitated for a moment. Did Mr. Drummond mean before it was put
into the desk or after?
"Why don't you answer me at once?" demanded his questioner testily,
while Mr. Brown regarded Terry with a look of sharp inquiry.
"I--I--didn't see it since you put it in your desk, sir," stammered
Terry slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the toes of his boots.
"Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Drummond in a tone that suggested he thought he was
getting some light on the mystery. "Then you did see the bag before it
was put in my desk?"
"Yes, sir," answered Terry, the words coming more readily as he
regained his self-command. "I saw the gentleman carrying it up the
wharf."
"Was that all you saw of it?" asked Mr. Drummond, eying him narrowly.
"Tell me now exactly."
"No, sir," replied Terry, the colour mounting in his face as the
thought came that perhaps he would be suspected of prying into a matter
that did not concern him. "I saw it when you were putting it into your
desk."
The partners exchanged significant glances. Here now they seemed to be
finding a clue that might help them. Recognizing the wisdom of being
more diplomatic in his mode of cross-examination, Mr. Drummond pursued
his inquiry in a much quieter tone.
"And how did you come to see the bag then?" he asked.
"The door of your office was open, sir," was the reply.
"And you were peeping, were you?" continued Mr. Drummond.
"Yes, sir. I didn't mean any harm," pleaded Terry.
"Perhaps not, but maybe harm has come of it whether you meant it or
not," retorted Mr. Drummond in a half-sneering tone. "Now tell me, was
that the last you saw of the bag? Have you seen nothing of it since?
Look me straight in the face as you answer me."
Terry lifted his eyes, and looked full into his employer's face as he
responded earnestly, "No, sir; sure as I'm standing here, sir, I
haven't."
The fervent frankness of his manner carried conviction, and there was a
perceptible change in Mr. Drummond's tone when he put the next
question:--
"From the way you say that, Terry, I believe it's the truth. But tell
me this: did you mention to any person about having seen the bag?
Think now, before you answer."
The boy's countenance, which had assumed its natural colour, grew
flushed again, and he hesitated for a moment before he replied,--
"I did tell my mother about it when I went home, sir."
Once more the partners exchanged meaning glances, and Mr. Brown seemed
about to say something, when Mr. Drummond checked him by a warning
motion of his hand.
"That will do for the present, Terry," said he. "I may want to ask you
some more questions afterwards. Don't mention to any of the clerks
what I've been asking you, or what you have told me. Just keep your
own counsel. Do you understand?"
When Terry went out, the two men consulted earnestly together. From
the signs left by the thief, whoever he was, it seemed clear that he
had a complete knowledge of the premises. He had apparently entered
the warehouse by a back window, which in his haste he had forgotten to
close after him, broken open the desk with a large chisel, taken
nothing except the bag, and made off in the same way that he had come.
Terry's confession as to telling his mother of the bag was, to say the
least, suggestive. Black Mike had not much reputation to lose.
According to the popular opinion of him, he would have small scruples
about taking the bag. Of course he could not be arrested upon mere
suspicion. Some more substantial grounds than that would have to be
found. But, in the meantime, he was worth watching, and accordingly it
was decided to engage a detective to "shadow" him, in the hope of
obtaining further proof.
When Terry came out of Mr. Drummond's office, Mr. Hobart took him
aside, and questioned him as to what he knew of the affair; and Terry
told him as much as he could without disobeying Mr. Drummond's
injunctions.
His listener did not make any comments, although in his mind there
arose the same thought that had occurred to the partners.
Terry's quick instinct told him there was something significant in his
story which had made an impression on the members of the firm and upon
Mr. Hobart. Yet, strange to say, its actual import did not occur to
him at the time. Indeed he was too deeply troubled with the fear lest
he himself should be in some way regarded as an accomplice in the
robbery, to speculate much as to who really might be the guilty one.
He saw nothing of his father all day. Black Mike had not shown up for
work, and the foreman took it for granted he was off on a spree. But
for the fact that after a holiday of this kind he always seemed
determined to atone for his absence by increased exertion, and would
positively do the work of two ordinary men, thanks to his enormous
strength, his name would not have stood upon the Long Wharf pay-roll at
all. As it was, he received wages for the time he actually worked, and
seemed quite content with the arrangement.
It was late at night before he reeled into Blind Alley, and stumbled up
the steep stairs to his squalid home. Tired though Terry felt, owing
to the stress and strain of the day, he had, in spite of his mother's
protests, stayed up to keep her company. Not a word did either speak
when the drunkard lurched into the room and fell heavily across the
bed. They knew better than to arouse his anger by addressing either
himself or one another.
He rolled about uneasily on the hard bed, grunting and growling more
like some wild animal than a human being. As he did so the clank of
coins in his pocket could be heard, and presently in his contortions
several of them worked out, and fell with a loud clang upon the floor.
He made as though he would get up to recover them; but the effort was
too much for him, and sinking back with a smothered oath, he fell into
the heavy stupor of the drunkard's sleep.
It was not until he felt perfectly sure of his father's helplessness
that Terry ventured to pick up the coins. To his astonishment they
were not copper pennies, as he had supposed from the sound of their
fall, but great golden double-eagles of the value of twenty dollars
each.
With a bewildered expression of countenance he laid them on his
mother's lap.
"Sure it's a heap of money," he whispered; "and how could father get
hold of so much?"
Mrs. Ahearn felt the splendid coins one by one as though to convince
herself that they were no optical illusion.
"The blessed saints preserve us, Terry!" she replied, crossing herself
almost mechanically. "Maybe it's goblin gold, and we should not be
touchin' it at all."
Not only was Terry far less superstitious than his mother, but he had
enjoyed the advantage of a wider experience. He had often seen Mr.
Hobart counting over precisely similar coins, and he felt pretty sure
that there was no goblin element about the contents of his father's
pockets.
"Och! no, mother," he answered, "it's not goblin gold at all. We often
have the same at the office."
There was a certain perceptible note of pride in his voice as he
brought out the last sentence, reassured by which Mrs. Ahearn took the
coins into her hands again, and permitted her sense of beauty to
indulge itself in admiring their perfection.
Neither spoke for the next minute; their brains were busy with
perplexing thoughts. Meantime Black Mike lay motionless as a log, only
an occasional gurgling gasp showing that he was actually alive. He was
now lying upon the broad of his back, thus leaving all his pockets
exposed. Acting upon an impulse that he could not restrain, Terry went
over to him and made a thorough search of the pockets. The result was
the discovery of three more double-eagles, making five in all.
One hundred dollars! more money by far than Black Mike had ever had at
once in his life before. How could he have honestly come by it?
Unknown to each other the same thought was forming in the mind of the
mother and son, and they dared not look into one another's eyes lest it
should be revealed. Mr. Hobart had told Terry that the black bag
contained a very large amount of money in gold, and this the boy had
duly repeated at home.
At last the silence became unendurable to both. Unable to restrain
herself any longer, Mrs. Ahearn caught Terry by the arm, and drew him
towards her.
"Holy Mary!" she murmured, as though praying for strength; and then,
after a moment's pause, added in a hoarse whisper, "Could your father
have stolen it, Terry?"
Terry started as if he had been struck, for his mother had uttered the
very question that possessed his own mind. He did not hold towards his
father a very warm affection. Black Mike's treatment of him from his
babyhood had been too consistently unfatherly for that. But the
thought of being arrested and sent to the grim granite penitentiary out
by the North-West Arm filled him with horror.
"Surely not, mother," he responded with a warmth that was increased by
his desire to convince himself as well as his mother. "It's not the
likes of father to be stealing money; somebody must have given it to
him."
The suggestion was a very unlikely one, yet they both sought to take
comfort from it. Gold was very plentiful in Halifax in those days, and
the successful blockade-runners lavished it with a free hand. Some one
of them, whose wits had been stolen away by strong drink, might have
filled Black Mike's pockets in a fit of reckless generosity.
But the more Terry thought over this the more improbable did it seem,
and he felt himself, however reluctantly, thrown back upon the only
other alternative to which almost unconsciously he gave expression.
"If father did steal the money," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the
drunken form, "where do you think he could have got it?"
He put the question because, although he had already answered it in his
own mind, he shrank from expressing his thought, at least until he saw
whether the same had come into his mother's mind.
Mrs. Ahearn was silent for some moments. Then, bending over towards
him as if afraid the sleeper might catch her words, she replied,--
"The black bag, Terry!"
Terry gave a groan of misery. His own harrowing suspicion had found
expression in his mother's words, and instantly he saw himself
transfixed between the horns of a terrible dilemma.
Not only so, but just as his mother had hit upon, the same solution of
the mystery of the gold, so must she realize the position in which he
was placed by it. That she did this was made clear the next moment;
for, as he remained silent, she drew him into her arms, and folding him
to her breast, sobbed out in plaintive tones,--
"Ye won't tell Mr. Drummond, will ye, Terry darlint? Sure it would
break me poor heart entirely if they were to send the police after your
father, and have him put in the penitentiary."
It was long past midnight before sleep came to Terry's eyes. He tossed
and tumbled about on his hard bed in a state of the most painful
perplexity. The idea of informing upon his father seemed nothing short
of horrible to him, and yet did not duty to his employer and to the
truth demand it? Mr. Drummond had been so good to him. Here, now, was
an opportunity to prove his gratitude. By prompt action a good part of
the stolen money might perhaps be recovered before it was squandered,
therefore the sooner he informed the better. His mother had carefully
put away the gold coins, in order that they might be restored when they
knew for certain to whom they rightfully belonged. Should he take them
to the office in the morning, and tell the whole story?
When he got up the next morning, a little later than usual, having
overslept himself, he found his father already gone out. Black Mike
had apparently not missed the gold, and asked no questions, although
his drunkenness had disappeared.
Nothing was said between Terry and his mother while he ate his
breakfast quickly; but just as he was hurrying off, she threw her arms
around his neck and whispered in his ear,--
"Say nothin' about the gold to-day, Terry darlint. Maybe it wasn't
your father took the bag at all."
At the office the clerks had settled down again to their regular
routine, and the distractions of the preceding day having caused some
arrears, they had to work all the harder to make them up. Terry was
kept on his feet continually, and was left little time for quiet
thinking. Mr. Hobart was absent, having been sent off by the firm on
an important mission to Windsor, whence he would not return until the
following day. Terry's heart sank when he heard this, for he craved a
talk with his friend, although his mind was not yet made up as to
whether he would tell him about his father.
Another absentee was Morley. A note had come from him, stating that he
was ill and confined to bed, but hoped to be at his desk in a day or
two. For some inexplicable reason, when Terry learned this the thought
flashed into his mind that Morley might know something about the black
bag. He could give himself no reason for it, yet there it stuck, and
by its presence helped to strengthen his reluctance to make known the
facts about his father.
In the afternoon the office was once more thrown into a state of
excitement by the news that the detectives had discovered the thief,
and already had him under arrest. Terry was out on an errand when the
word came.
On his return he entered the office just behind Mr. Boggs, the
assistant book-keeper, at sight of whom one of the other clerks, eager
to be the first to tell the news, shouted out,--
"They've caught the burglar, Boggs. Guess who it is?"
Terry's heart stopped beating, and an icy chill ran through his body,
as, pausing by the door, he waited in harrowing apprehension for the
answer.