MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF MR. COWDRICK.--THE “CRAB.”--“HEAR BOTH
SIDES.”--A SKELETON DISCOVERED.--A POWERFUL SERMON.
Before another Sunday came, the community was shocked and startled
by the announcement that Mr. Cowdrick, the banker, had suddenly and
mysteriously disappeared. What had become of him nobody seemed to know.
Even Mrs. Cowdrick apparently did not know. The friends who promptly
called upon her, partly for the purpose of offering her their sympathy
and partly with an intent to gratify their curiosity, ascertained,
during the intervals of her hysterical spasms, that she cherished a
wild and rather incoherent theory that Mr. Cowdrick had been brutally
assassinated by some person and for some cause unknown. And this
theory obtained some acceptance for a time among amiable people, who
were disposed to take the most charitable view of the situation. But
the number of these speedily diminished when the newspapers, a day
or two later, revealed the result of an official examination of the
affairs of Mr. Cowdrick’s bank. The public then learned that that
financial institution was rotten through and through; that Mr. Cowdrick
and his partners in crime had not only used, for purposes of private
speculation, the money of the depositors, but that they had stolen
everything of value that had been committed to their care, and had left
the bank an absolute, hopeless wreck, and reduced the innocent and
unsuspicious stockholders to beggary.
The public excitement, of course, was great. Mrs. Cowdrick’s friends
neglected her. The rich and influential De Flukes actually insulted her
by sending to recall an invitation to their reception that had been
sent to her. As if Mrs. Cowdrick could have attended the reception
at any rate! This was the cruellest thing of all, to Mrs. Cowdrick.
She broke down completely and went to bed, where Leonie waited upon
her to supply her with almost alarming quantities of camphor and
smelling-salts.
As no traces of the fugitive could be found; as no one could testify
to having seen him leave the city; and as the detective force, after
following out without success any number of what they considered
excellent clues, appeared to have relapsed into a normal condition of
imbecility and indifference, the conclusion reached by many persons
was, that Cowdrick had destroyed himself; and the energetic and
enterprising coroner, McSorley, who had just been elected upon the
Democratic ticket, went to work to drag all the rivers and creeks and
ponds in the neighborhood.
Colonel Hoker, the editor of the _Crab_, the leading daily paper,
advocated a dozen different theories in turn, and his indomitable
reporters not only secured early and accurate reports of the condition
of the bank, but they obtained expressions of opinion from at least
thirty eminent citizens who really knew no more about the matter than
other people, and they watched Cowdrick’s house so closely, and were so
successful in establishing confidential relations with the chambermaid,
that they were able to tell how often the doctor called to see Mrs.
Cowdrick, what quantity of reinvigorating drugs she consumed, how her
medicine agreed with her, and what she had every day for dinner.
A country wherein a tyrant’s power is used to shackle the press, and to
rob it of freedom of utterance, does not know how much it misses.
The uncertainty in which the fate of Mr. Cowdrick was involved, made it
exceedingly difficult for Colonel Hoker to discuss the bank sensation
in his editorial columns. If he could have felt sure that the unhappy
fugitive had really slain himself, the course of the Colonel would
have been clear; for then he could with safety have directed public
attention to the peculiar atrocity of the transactions at the bank;
he could have held the miserable offender up before the public eye
to point to him as an awful example to others, and especially to the
young, and he could have preached many eloquent sermons upon the text,
“Be sure your sins will find you out!”
But while a chance remained that Cowdrick was still alive and might
return, the Colonel knew that it was the duty of persons upon whom it
devolved to form public opinion through the instrumentality of the
press, to be careful. He had learned from extended observation that
an absent offender who has been roughly used as a warning against
pursuance of the paths of vice, sometimes comes back, and, after
gaining possession of power and riches, manifests a disposition to make
things very uncomfortable for the eminent journalists who have used him
as a basis for their denunciations of sin. And so the Colonel discussed
the matter in the _Crab_ only in a general way; lamenting the loss
to the stockholders; expressing regret that “one of our most eminent
citizens should be, for a time at least, in some respects under a
cloud,” and urging that perhaps the disaster might fairly be attributed
to the spirit of wild speculation which seemed at times to animate
entire communities, rather than to a deliberate purpose to inflict
injury upon confiding and innocent persons.
The dexterity displayed by Colonel Hoker, in keeping the _Crab_ in
such a nice position that while it apparently conceded much to public
sentiment and the requirements of morality, it yet left a very wide
margin for the contingency of Cowdrick’s vindication and restoration to
prosperity, was really marvellous.
But the nicest ingenuity sometimes will not avail against accident,
or rather against that Fate which ordains catastrophe with ironical
contempt for human foresight.
The Colonel was compelled to leave town for a few days, and in order to
make the _Crab_ entirely safe, he penned two editorial articles, one to
be used in the event of the discovery of Cowdrick’s dead body during
his absence, the other to be inserted if Cowdrick should return alive
to face his accusers and his fate.
The former article ran in this wise:--
“THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR.
“It has not often been our lot to present to our readers more
striking proof than that which is found in our columns to-day of
the fact that Satan makes hard bargains. It is now positively
ascertained that Cowdrick the swindler, forger and thief, driven
by desperation at the exposure of his awful crimes, and, let us
hope, for the sake of human nature, by the stings of a conscience
which could not hearken with indifference to the cries of the
widows and orphans reduced at one fell blow to beggary, took his
own life, and so ended a career of crime which honest men shrink
from contemplating. It is, perhaps, for the best, however much we
may regret that this wretched felon, burdened with guilt and shame,
should have robbed the law of its right to punish, and should have
gone into eternity unshriven, with the guilt of self-destruction
added to the mountain of sins for which already he was required to
give account. We shrink from discussion of the dreadful details
of this shocking and sickening tragedy; but it will not have been
enacted in vain if it shall seem to warn those who are tempted, as
this man was, to surrender honesty at the demand of greed, and to
permit the maddening thirst for gain to persuade them to trample in
the dust their obligations to society, to their families, and to
those who had given them their trust.”
The second article pursued rather a different line of thought. It was
to the following effect:--
“A DEMAND FOR FAIR PLAY.
“We take a great deal of pleasure in announcing that Henry P.
Cowdrick, Esq., the well-known banker, whose name has been before
the public for some days past in connection with some unpleasant,
but not yet positively authentic, rumors, has returned to the city
in the enjoyment of excellent health. It is understood that an
immediate further examination into the affairs of the bank will
be made with the assistance of Mr. Cowdrick, and we merely express
the general wish when we say that we hope to have some of the
transactions that have excited severest comment explained in such
a manner as to vindicate Mr. Cowdrick of every suspicion of wilful
wrong-doing. Meantime, while this inquiry is pending, and while Mr.
Cowdrick is preparing his statement of the case, it is only just to
him to ask that there shall be a suspension of public opinion. His
former high standing, his services to this community, the obscurity
in which the recent operations of the bank are shrouded, and the
most ordinary requirements of fair play, all combine to make it
desirable that public opinion shall not pronounce a final verdict
before the case is made up. We need not say how earnestly we trust
that Mr. Cowdrick will emerge from his troubles with his honor
unstained, and his reputation as a faithful guardian of the trusts
confided to him, untarnished.”
As a precautionary measure, the preparation of these articles appeared
to be in a high sense judicious; and the Colonel naturally felt that
the _Crab_ might be depended on to keep nicely upon the right track
until he should come home. But, alas! upon the next day but one after
his departure, the foreman of the _Crab_ composing-room, either
mistaking his instructions, or being too much in haste in arranging his
material, placed both articles together in the form, and the _Crab_
came out in the morning to provoke the mirth of the town, to excite the
contempt of its enemies, and to drive the unhappy associate editors
of the paper to madness and despair. The manner in which the rival
journals commented upon the occurrence was both brutal and infamous;
and when the subject became a little stale, the editors of the rival
journals put the _Crab_ articles carefully away in scrap books, so as
to make sure of having them ready for irritating and badgering Colonel
Hoker upon every favorable opportunity during all the years to come.
The Colonel himself, upon discerning the catastrophe in a copy of the
paper which he picked up at his hotel, expressed his feelings freely
and vehemently by telegraph, and then he started home upon a fast
express train for the purpose of explaining his views more fully and
precisely.
The _Crab_ itself alluded to the subject only so far as to suggest
that the stupidity of an associate editor was accountable for the
performance, and to hint that there was some reason for suspecting that
bribery had been employed by the owners of rival papers, in the vain
hope to bring the _Crab_, the only really infallible journal published,
into contempt.
The efforts of McSorley, the coroner, to demonstrate the correctness
of his theory of suicide were indefatigable. The body not having been
discovered in any of the streams, McSorley began to search for it upon
the land. The pursuit, however, was not profitable, for no traces of
Mr. Cowdrick could be found. An ordinary coroner would have abandoned
the hunt in despair; but McSorley was no common man. He brought to the
performance of the functions of his office an enthusiasm which never
failed to kindle at the promise of a fee; and as, in this case, he was
thoroughly convinced that Cowdrick ought to have committed suicide, he
felt that for Cowdrick to have evaded his duty in the matter would have
been to perpetrate a wanton outrage upon Coroner McSorley.
The following extract from the local reports in the _Crab_ will explain
the character of the coroner’s ultimate effort:--
“Yesterday a number of large bones were discovered beneath an old
stable on Twelfth Street, by some laborers. It was believed by most
of the spectators that they were the bones of a horse. But Coroner
McSorley, who was sent for, declared at once his belief that they were
portions of the skeleton of one of our prominent citizens, a banker,
who has been missing for several days. This view was contested by
several of the persons present upon the ground that the remains were
absolutely fleshless, and manifestly very old. But the coroner, to
demonstrate the accuracy of his view, proceeded to arrange the bones
upon the pavement in the form of a man. He succeeded in the attempt
to some extent, and was about to summon his jury of inquest, when
Dr. Wattles came up. The doctor examined the skeleton, and then the
following conversation ensued between him and Coroner McSorley:--
“‘You don’t imagine that to be the skeleton of a human being, do you,
Mr. McSorley?’
“Certainly it is! Don’t you see the shape of it?’
“‘But, my dear sir, what you have arranged as the spine, runs clear up
through what you suppose to be the skull, and projects two or three
inches beyond the top of the head.’
“‘Of course; and that is very likely the cause of all the trouble. The
man’s spine worked up into his head and disordered his mind. An aunt of
mine, in Wisconsin, went mad from that very cause.’
“‘But how do you account for the fact that there are three elbows in
the left arm and none at all in the right.’
“‘Dr. Wattles, I am not obliged to account for eccentricities of
formation in different individuals. I am satisfied with them as nature
made them; and that is enough. It’s none of my business if Cowdrick had
eleven elbows in one arm, and thirty-four in the other.’
“‘I will not argue the point, sir; but you certainly have no authority
for locating two ribs in the neck, and for placing a row of teeth upon
the upper side of the right foot. That foot, Mr. McSorley, is nothing
but a fragment of a lower jawbone, depend upon it.’
“‘How do you know that the deceased had no teeth there? You doctors
always want to insist that every man is constructed on the same plan. I
used to know a man in Canada who had four molar teeth in his ankle; and
two of them were plugged. This appears to be a similar case.’
“‘But you never knew a man who had a thighbone where his shoulder-blade
ought to be, like this one, did you? You never saw a man with a
knee-cap in the small of his back, either, did you?”
[Illustration: “YOU NEVER SAW A MAN WITH A KNEE-CAP IN THE SMALL OF HIS
BACK.”]
“‘Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t. I have no time to discuss the
subject now. The inquest that I am about to hold will bring out the
facts. Mr. O’Flynn, swear in the jury!’”
The evidence that was given by the witnesses was of the most varied
and entertaining character; and though much of it was vague and much
was irrelevant, the jury appeared to have no difficulty in reaching a
conclusion, for, after a few minutes’ deliberation, they brought in
a verdict that “the deceased, Henry P. Cowdrick, came to his death
from cause or causes unknown;” and then they collected their fees and
dispersed, with a grateful consciousness that they had fully discharged
their duty to society.
But, of course, perfectly disinterested persons, persons who were
not in the way of earning jury fees, were disposed to regard with
incredulity the conclusions reached by the coroner and his friends, and
still it was for the community a vexed question--What had become of Mr.
Cowdrick?
The coroner’s theory, however, was not entirely forgotten, because Dr.
Wattles sent to one of the daily papers a communication, in which he
expressed his opinion of the bones over which the inquest was held.
This provoked from “An Eminent Scientist,” who had not seen the bones,
a suggestion of the possibility that they may have belonged to some
mysterious creature who was the missing link between man and the lower
orders of mammalia.
To this there came a hot response from Father Tunicle and several other
clergymen, who proceeded to show the monstrous folly and wickedness of
such a supposition, and who demonstrated that Science and Infidelity,
not to say sheer Paganism, were pretty nearly one and the same thing.
The clerical utterances so excited at least half-a-dozen other Eminent
Scientists that the latter undertook to demonstrate, through the
columns of the daily papers, that the book of Genesis was written
by Jeremiah; that life first visited this planet in the shape of
star-dust, which, after developing into jelly-fish, gradually grew
to the ape form, and ultimately became man. They showed how all
religion is priestcraft and superstition; they traced all the creeds
backward to myths built upon the operations of Nature; they could
hardly refrain from mirth at the notion of a Great First Cause; and
they positively refused to join with the multitude, for whom, however,
they expressed deep compassion, in believing anything that they could
not see, or feel, or analyze.
It seemed a large controversy to grow out of Coroner McSorley’s
arrangement of the unearthed bones; but the controversialists
manifestly regarded it as of the very highest importance; although,
when it was ended, each believed precisely what he had believed before.
At St. Cadmus’s, the Cowdrick tragedy had had, upon the whole, rather
a good effect. The event was mournful, of course, but it produced some
desirable results. The Tunicle party felt that they had lost one of
their most ardent supporters, and a contributor upon whose wealth they
had depended greatly for the success of their plans. Thus they were
able more easily to perceive the excellence of a spirit of concession,
and at once they began to approach the other side with offers of
compromise.
Happily, at this juncture, Father Krum received a “call” to a church
in another diocese, and he accepted it promptly, sending in his
resignation of his position as the assistant minister at St. Cadmus’s.
Father Tunicle, then, of his own motion, offered to abandon, as not
absolutely essential to salvation, the use of black book-markers upon
Good Friday; whereupon Mr. Yetts and his adherents in the vestry
declared themselves satisfied, and once more resumed their accustomed
places in the sanctuary on Sunday.
Upon the second Sunday after the disappearance of Mr. Cowdrick, Father
Tunicle, who held stoutly to the theory that his late vestryman had
been murdered, resolved to refer indirectly in his remarks from the
pulpit to the bereavement; and upon his invitation, Mrs. Cowdrick and
Leonie attended the church, heavily veiled, to obtain what consolation
might be possible from the services.
Father Tunicle, being somewhat pressed for time during the preceding
week, had procured from a dealer in such commodities, at the price of
three dollars, an original sermon addressed to persons in affliction,
and this he brought with him into the pulpit, wrapped in Leonie’s
worked velvet sermon-cover. The fact that the sermon was nicely
lithographed, so that it closely resembled manuscript, made it quite
impossible for any one to suspect that it was not the product of Father
Tunicle’s own intellectual effort and of his earnest sympathy. The
discourse was divided into four parts; three heads, and an affecting
application; which, at three dollars for the whole, of course amounted
to just seventy-five cents a part--not too much, surely, for so
wholesome and comforting a sermon.
Father Tunicle preached it with much eloquence; but Mrs. Cowdrick,
despite an occasional sob beneath her veil, managed to restrain her
feelings until Father Tunicle had gotten through with one dollar and
a half’s worth of the sermon, and had begun upon the third head.
Then Mrs. Cowdrick could stand it no longer. One passionate outburst
of grief followed another, until, when the attention of the entire
congregation was directed to Mrs. Cowdrick, the sexton came in, and
led her in a fainting condition down the aisle to the door, where she
was placed in the carriage with Leonie, with nothing to solace her but
the reflection that everybody in the church, including the odious De
Flukes, _must_ have noticed her sealskin sacque and her lovely diamond
earrings.