AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
Convinced now of the girl’s guilt, Owen Sheridan was walking dejectedly
out of the room, when suddenly he remembered that he had not carried out
his intention of searching for some clew as to Dallas’ whereabouts.
He returned to the waste-paper basket, which was half full of litter,
and emptied its contents on the floor. Some fragments of paper with blue
printing on them caught his eye. He recognized them as being parts of
the top of a telegraph blank.
There was a pad of Postal Telegraph sending blanks on a small writing
desk in a corner of the room. It occurred to Owen that Dallas might have
written out a message with the intention of sending it over the wire,
then changed her mind and torn up what she had written. He began eagerly
to pick the rest of the pieces from the heap of rubbish, and soon had
the complete telegram.
It consisted of two lines in the girl’s handwriting, which he recognized
immediately. The torn-up message was addressed to Chester Worthington,
89 Dulwich Street, Chicago, and read:
“Disregard my letter. Am coming to you immediately. Don’t do
anything rash. Will do my utmost to help you.
“DALLAS.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Sheridan, “I guess this explains where she has gone--and
why. That scapegrace brother of hers has got into trouble again, and she
has gone out there to help him. And I suppose she used that
hundred-dollar bill to pay her fare. Yes, that must be it. She tried to
borrow the price of the train ticket from her employer, and when he
refused, the poor girl, in her desperation, yielded to the temptation to
steal that letter.”
For several minutes he sat staring miserably at the telegram which he
had pieced together on the writing desk; then he rose abruptly, and,
thrusting the fragments of paper into his pocket, moved toward the door,
a look of determination in his eyes.
By the time he reached the street his mind was fully made up as to the
course he would pursue. He intended to go back to the chief inspector,
and report that he had failed to solve the mystery of the missing pink
envelope; and, moreover, he would say nothing about the telegram he had
found in Dallas’ room, so that if others were put on the case they would
be unable to get on the track of the girl.
The chief would sneer at him, no doubt, for falling down on his very
first case; but he wouldn’t mind that as long as Dallas escaped
punishment for an offense which he could not believe her guilty of, in
spite of the evidence he had obtained.
“And, of course, I’m going to hand in my resignation from the postal
service, to take effect at once,” he told himself. “I couldn’t very well
continue in the employ of the United States government after helping to
defeat the ends of justice.”
“Hello!” exclaimed a cheery voice, as Owen turned the street corner, so
wrapped up in his gloomy meditations that he almost collided with the
speaker. “And how’s our young post-office inspector to-day? Not on the
trail of malefactors already, I’ll wager. From your pre-occupied air and
the frown upon your countenance, Owen, it must be a perplexing problem
you’re wrestling with.”
Owen looked into the smiling countenance of ex-Judge Sugden Lawrence,
the kind friend whose influence had enabled him to land the government
job which he now contemplated resigning.
Acting on an impulse, Sheridan decided to take the lawyer into his
confidence. He knew that the latter could be trusted not to betray
Dallas’ secret.
“It is a perplexing problem I’m wrestling with, judge,” he said; “one of
the most unpleasant a fellow was ever up against.”
“Official or personal?” inquired the lawyer.
“Both,” answered Owen grimly. “And that’s where the trouble comes in.
It’s the personal element in this case which makes it impossible for me
to do my duty.”
The judge frowned, and looked at him disapprovingly. “Impossible to do
your duty, Owen? I’m sorry to hear you talk like that. If I thought that
you really meant it, I should regret very much that I had assisted you
to become a post-office inspector. No personal considerations should
ever cause an officer of the law to shirk his duty.”
“That’s all very well to say,” returned the inspector; “but an officer
of the law is human, just like everybody else, and it isn’t reasonable
to ask him to arrest the girl he loves.”
“What!” exclaimed Judge Lawrence, in astonishment. “Arrest Miss
Worthington? What on earth for?”
In a few words Owen sadly explained to him the nature of his first
assignment as a post-office inspector. The lawyer listened with growing
amazement.
“This is really most extraordinary! I cannot bring myself to believe
that that young woman could be a thief. Come on downtown with me to my
office, Owen, and let us talk this case over. Perhaps by putting our
heads together we shall be able to convince ourselves of your fiancée’s
innocence.”
Half an hour later they sat in the lawyer’s private office, and Owen
narrated every detail of the case, and displayed the incriminating
envelope and the telegram, which he pieced together on Judge Lawrence’s
desk.
“It is really very strange,” declared the judge. “Looking at all the
evidence from the standpoint of a lawyer, I should have no hesitancy in
declaring that the young woman must be guilty. And yet----” He stopped
short, and, leaning back in his chair, gazed dreamily toward the
ceiling.
“And yet what?” queried Owen eagerly.
“I was just thinking of a scene which took place in this office a few
months ago. It was almost the same scene as is being enacted here now;
only, in that instance, Miss Worthington sat in the chair which you now
occupy, and you were the subject under discussion.”
He smiled whimsically. “And I couldn’t help thinking, my dear Owen, as
that scene came back to me, how very much superior the other sex is to
ours when it comes to loyalty and faith. I remember that Miss
Worthington, that day, refused even to consider the possibility of your
being guilty. She declared that no matter what evidence might be
brought against you, she would never believe that you were a thief.”
Owen flushed painfully, and a tender look came to his eyes. “Dear little
girl,” he murmured; “I’m a brute to doubt her. But the evidence is
convincing, judge. You must admit that there is no----”
“The evidence in your case--the circumstantial evidence--appeared to be
equally convincing, Owen,” interrupted the judge. “Yet she refused to
accept it; and it turned out afterward that her faith was not
misplaced.”
Sheridan looked at him eagerly. “Then you really think that there’s a
chance of her being innocent?”
“I do. Your own narrow escape ought to have taught you that there is
always a chance of circumstantial evidence leading to a wrong
conclusion. Now, there is one thing about that telegram which you found
in the waste-paper basket which, in my opinion, indicates that Miss
Worthington did not steal the pink envelope. Apparently it is a point
which has escaped your observation.”
“What do you mean, judge?” inquired Owen breathlessly.
“I refer to the opening words of that message: ‘Disregard my letter,’
she telegraphs to her brother. Now, doesn’t that look as if she may have
been telling the truth when she stated to Carrier Andrews that she had
dropped into that mail box a letter which she had changed her mind about
sending? Doesn’t it look as if the opening words of her telegram have
reference to that letter?”
A look of joy came to Owen’s face. “By Jove, yes!” he exclaimed. “I
think I see it now, judge. Dallas didn’t mean to steal the Reverend
Doctor Moore’s letter. She was after the one which she had dropped in
the box--the one to her brother in Chicago. She got the other pink
envelope by mistake. Yes, that must be it, of course. She didn’t
discover her error until she reached home; then, realizing that it was
too late to stop that letter to her brother, she sat down and wrote him
that telegram. The whole thing’s as clear as daylight now. I’m mighty
glad that I met you to-day, judge.”
Then suddenly all the joy departed from Sheridan’s face. “But no, it
couldn’t have been that way, after all,” he went on, with a sigh of
disappointment. “That theory won’t go; we’re overlooking two things.”
“What are they?”
“In the first place, she didn’t send that telegram to her brother, after
all. If she had I wouldn’t have found it in the basket.”
“Pooh! That argument’s easily met. She may have sent another message.
Women generally write a telegram over three or four times before they’re
satisfied with the wording of it, you know. Or she may have decided
that, as she was going out to Chicago, there was no need of
telegraphing. Probably she figured on getting there almost as soon as
her letter.”
“Yes,” Owen admitted; “of course, that’s logical enough. But my other
argument isn’t so easily disposed of. I’m afraid it knocks out our
theory.”
“What is it?”
“If Dallas got the clergyman’s letter by an innocent mistake, what
became of her letter--the one she really wanted? There was no other pink
envelope in that box. There would have been if she had been telling the
truth when she said she mailed it.”
The judge gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Yes, that is a stumper, I
must admit. But,” he added, “maybe Miss Worthington could explain that.
I feel confident that she could. Why don’t you go to Chicago on the very
next train and ask her, Inspector Sheridan? I wouldn’t lose any time in
clearing this thing up if I were you.”
“But suppose I ask her, and she admits----”
“Bah!” interrupted the lawyer impatiently; “shame on you for an unworthy
lover! I’m willing to wager everything I’ve got that that little girl
won’t admit to you that she’s a thief--because she won’t have to.”
His confident air was infectious. “Thank you!” said Owen. “You’re quite
right, of course. Dallas couldn’t be a thief! I’m going to take the
first train out.”