THREE CONFERENCES AND THEIR RESULTS
There were three very important conferences held that evening.
The first was by Barnaby Vernon with himself.
As he walked down-town, towards his hotel, off came the mustache, the
glasses, the pin, one after another, and then even the duster was
removed and thrown over his arm.
He had left his straw hat “to be called for,” and now he went into the
store and put it on again, ordering the tall silk hat to be delivered
at the hotel.
There was, therefore, on his return, no perceptible difference in his
exterior, and he had no fears whatever that Major Montague would make
his appearance very soon.
After supper, however, he retired to his own room, for a good solid
“think” over the events of the day.
“No,” he said at last, “there’s no sort of question about the honesty
of it, bad as it would have looked if anybody had seen me do it. Still
it was a terribly dangerous experiment, and I’ll never try anything of
the sort again, even to keep a man from being robbed. I might just have
collared old Prosper, and shouted ‘Police!’ Then it never would have
been found on him, and I’d have made a fool of myself. But what’ll I
say to the owner? I won’t own to any connection with that gang. We’ll
see about it when the time comes. Maybe he’ll be glad enough to get his
money back without asking any questions. Now for a look at it, and to
find out to whom it belongs.”
The door of the room was safely locked and bolted, and Bar sat down
with a strange kind of a trouble all over him, and drew from his bosom
the treasure of which he had so singularly obtained possession.
It must have been made at the same shop as the one left in his hands by
the “pocketbook-dropper” that morning, and Bar could not help wondering
whether that baffled swindler would soon succeed again in rigging up so
very taking a bait.
“He’ll end his days in the penitentiary,” muttered Bar, “and so’ll all
the rest of ’em. I’d rather not go that way, if you please. Hullo!
what’s this?”
Thousand-dollar bills, ten of them. Others of smaller denominations,
comparatively, but all large. Checks and drafts for ten times as much
more.
Business memoranda and receipts, which, even to Bar’s inexperienced
eye, were evidently of great importance, and there could be no manner
of doubt that the whole belonged to Dr. Randall Manning, the great
physician.
“Glad he’s so rich,” muttered Bar. “And to think of such a man going
in to help a poor fellow that fell in a fit on the sidewalk! How mad he
must have been when he found he had been cheated! Yes, and what did he
say or think when he found all this among the missing. I see. That gang
played for him on purpose, and they played it wonderfully well. Hope
they’ll be happy over their winnings. Why, I shall hardly dare go to
sleep to-night with all this in my room. Only nobody’d dream of trying
to rob a boy like me. Not worth robbing, and that’s a comfort just
now. I’ll go to the doctor’s the first thing in the morning. Why not
to-night? It’s early yet. No, he won’t be at home this evening. He’ll
be hunting all over the city to see if he can get on the track of his
property.”
Barnaby was only half right, and his better course would have been to
go at once, for although the worthy doctor did employ his evening till
a late hour, too, in the manner the quick-witted boy had imagined, he
was just then at home and would have been glad enough to welcome such a
visitor as Bar would have been.
Moreover, Bar himself might have had some chance for a good night’s
sleep, instead of lying wide awake, as he did, hugging his precious
wallet.
Perhaps, however, that night’s wakefulness, as the guardian of another
man’s property, with all the thoughts it brought to the mind of the
lonely and friendless boy, may have been of special service, and Bar’s
decision may have been for the best, after all.
At all events, when morning came, Bar had fully made up his mind as to
the course he meant to take, and it was scarcely the same he would
have chosen if he had acted on the spur of the moment.
The second “conference” that evening began at the same time with Bar’s,
but it did not last all night.
It was held in the elegantly furnished library of Dr. Manning, and the
parties to it were an elderly-looking, intellectual-seeming gentleman,
and the doctor himself.
The former was no less a man than Dr. Manning’s legal counsel, who had
called for a very different piece of business from the one before him
now.
He had evidently been listening to his client’s account of his
misfortune, and his face expressed almost as much indignation as
sympathy.
“You see, Judge,” urged the doctor, “I felt that I ought to take it
while I could get it. He was to go on board the steamer at six o’clock,
and it seemed like my last chance. He means to be honest, you know,
but he’s so speculative and uncertain. He signed over the checks and
drafts, and paid me the money, just as if he had never intended to do
anything else.”
“You could have had him arrested,” snapped the judge.
“Arrested, Judge Danvers? The very thing I did not want to do. Besides,
how could I, when he turned upon me so frankly and said, ‘There’s your
money just as I collected it, every cent,’ and paid it squarely into my
hands.”
“No telling what he has that belongs to other men. You were not his
only victim.”
“Never thought of that,” said the doctor. “Anyhow, I received my money.”
“And lost it on your way home,” growled the judge.
“I hope not,” replied the doctor. “I’ve already sent advertisements to
all the newspapers. The finder could not use the checks and drafts,
even if he were dishonest, and my wallet was marked inside with my
address in full.”
“Finder!” petulantly exclaimed the judge. “Why, Doctor, you’ve had
your pocket picked. Do you suppose your reward--a thousand dollars
I think you said--will make a pickpocket send back your greenbacks?
Of course, you can stop payment of the other things, if you’re quick
enough. I’ll take care of that myself, but how are we ever to get at
the money, I’d like to know? It’s a pretty kettle of fish. You say you
took a carriage and rode all the way home?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, almost meekly, “it was after bank hours or
I’d have deposited the whole thing at once. So I took a carriage and
hurried home, meaning to lock it up in my own safe here, over night,
and deposit it in the bank in the morning.”
“But didn’t you stop, anywhere?”
“No--yes--well, I did get out for just a minute in front of Stewart’s,
to look at a fellow they said had tumbled in a fit on the sidewalk. He
was a complete fraud. No fit at all.”
“I see,” exclaimed the judge. “If I could only get hold of that
make-believe epileptic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mean? Why, there was a crowd, of course, all around you, behind you,
close to you, as you leaned over your patient. The light-fingered
gentry had it all their own way.”
“Why, Judge, I saw half a dozen men I knew, and a more
respectable-looking crowd you never saw. There were even ladies in it,
just come out of Stewart’s.”
“Exactly,” said the judge, “and I must see the police this very night
again, and so must you. Send for a carriage, Doctor; we’ve no time to
lose.”
“Certainly,” replied the doctor, as he rose from his chair, “but I’ve
three or four patients I must look to on the way. Mustn’t neglect them,
you know, for any mere matter of money.”
“Patients!” exclaimed the dry, hard man of law, but he gazed very
admiringly on the true-hearted and high-principled physician for all
that. “Yes, I’ll help you ’tend cases all night. No other medicine
man shall have the killing of me. To think of them under such
circumstances!”
And so, a few minutes later, the doctor and the judge rode away
together on their joint errand of healing, mercy, and pickpocket
detection.
The third conference had taken place even earlier in the evening.
Such experienced hands as Prosper, Major Montague, and their
colleagues, were not likely to come together at once, after such a
remarkable exploit as they had performed, and they found their way to
their appointed rendezvous by circuitous routes, and one by one.
Moreover, even Prosper, mindful of the suspicious jealousy of his
associates, did not dare to disturb the outer covering of his prey
until the rest arrived, although his clawlike fingers worked around it,
as it lay in his pocket, with a perfect ague-shake of mingled greed and
curiosity.
The hour agreed upon was not likely to be overstaid on such an occasion
as that, and Prosper was in no danger of being long compelled to bear
his temptation alone.
First came the little, dapper, sharp-visaged person who had made so
good an imitation of a fit, then Major Montague, and, closely following
him were two very well dressed, respectable-looking gentlemen, who had
been conspicuous as active members of the “crowd” in front of Stewart’s.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Prosper, “we are all here and it may be there’s
no time to lose. We’ve made a magnificent haul, or I’m mistaken. There
it is.”
And so saying he threw down upon the table before them the elegantly
finished Russia leather wallet, which Barnaby Vernon had received from
the “dropper” a few hours earlier, plump and full as when Bar had
refused to “divide the reward” for it.
The eyes of the whole party glistened with expectation, and more than
one of them drew a long breath and reached out an involuntary hand. It
was by no means easy for such men to look upon a pocketbook like that
and not lay a finger on it.
“Open it, Monsieur Prosper,” said Major Montague, dignifiedly. “Let all
witness the opening and feel sure of the exact justice of our mutual
dealings.”
A hum of approbation ran around the little circle as Prosper’s unsteady
fingers drew the strap and disclosed the precious contents to their
admiring gaze.
“What’s that?” almost instantly thereafter shouted Major Montague.
“Prosper, you old villain, do you think you can play any such game on
us?”
The chorus of wrath, indignation, bitterness, profanity that followed
upon the major’s “opening” would have defied a dozen stenographers,
and poor old Prosper bent tremblingly and helplessly before the storm,
vainly protesting the truth that the wallet had not left his pocket
until he laid it before them on the table.
No such assertion could be of any manner of service. Were they all
fools? Had Dr. Manning rigged himself for the drop game? What had he
done with the money?
And then came darker hints and threats, until Prosper, almost beside
himself with rage, fear, and perplexity, actually stuck his head out of
the open window and yelled:
“Police! police!” at the top of his voice.
The room behind him was empty in a moment, but Bar Vernon’s afternoon
work had resulted in forever disbanding what had threatened, from the
skill and ability of its well-trained membership, to be one of the most
dangerous gangs of rogues that ever infested the metropolis.
Prosper knew that he would thenceforth be a marked man, even among the
thieving fraternity itself, and could hope for no more confederates.
The major had lost faith in humanity, and knew, besides, that all
humanity had lost faith in him, for it was more than intimated that he
was suspected of collusion with Prosper.
The little dapper “fits” imitator declared that he had lost all
ambition, and should at once return to his legitimate business of
three-card monte.
As for the other two, they contented themselves for weeks with a vain
attempt to dog the movements of their late associates, and learn what
had become of the doctor’s money.
The only man who made any profit out of the operation was the landlord
of the “hotel,” who found the wallet lying on the table after Prosper’s
half-frenzied exit, and sold it to a countryman for three dollars,
applying that sum to the rent of the room.
Perhaps the bitterest moment undergone by any of them all, however,
came to the share of Prosper himself, the next morning, when he read
in the papers an offer of a thousand dollars’ reward for the return of
that very wallet.
Then, indeed, he bowed his head in utter desolation, for the truth
became only too clear to a mind so well trained as his own.
“Changed in the crowd!” he exclaimed.
“Got into the wrong hands. Somebody else will get the reward or keep
the wallet!”
It was too much for human endurance, and for at least an hour the
defeated pickpocket had serious thoughts of giving up everything and
going to work for an honest living.
It looked a good deal as if even the evil one had turned against him,
which is very much what every evil man is apt to make up his mind to,
sooner or later.