A CLUE
A week later Roland received a letter from his father in answer to that
he had written him. Its contents were as follows:
"My dear Roland,--I know that with your young heart and strong courage
and a complete and happy absence of nerves, you cannot but think it
weak and cowardly of me to run away instead of waiting and fighting hard
against circumstances. I know as well as anyone can tell me that this is
the course I should have adopted, and a score of times since I came away
I have been on the point of returning and giving myself up, but each
time when it has come to the point I have drawn back, and despised
myself for my cowardice. But I cannot overcome it. I had an unhappy
childhood under a stern father and a very unkind stepmother, and I think
that any spirit I ever had was frightened out of me by the time I
entered life--a shrinking, sensitive young fellow, conscious that I
possessed fair abilities, but altogether unfit to fight my own way.
"For some years life was very hard to me, and my failing increased
rather than diminished; and then by some good chance, certainly from no
solicitation on my part, a course opened before me. I married. Your
mother's firmness gave me support, and her love and goodness brought me
happiness. Then when I obtained the post of cashier at the bank of
Brownsville, it seemed that my trials were over. Although I could never
bring myself to mix much with other men, I gained confidence in myself,
and believed that I had grown out of that extreme sensibility which had
rendered my early years so unhappy. When the trial came upon me suddenly
I found that I was mistaken. The thought of standing before the world
accused of theft filled me with an overpowering fear, and rather than
stay and face it I should have put an end to my existence. I know that
you will scarcely understand this feeling. I know that you will think it
weak and cowardly. I simply say, my boy, that I cannot help it, and that
I can no more withstand it than a madman can check his impulses.
"And now I have told you so much, my son, I will tell you of the events
of that evening. For some days I had been low and out of sorts; a
haunting sense that something was wrong had been upon me. The last
clerk, before leaving, had, as usual, laid the keys on the desk beside
me. I told him he could go, as I had some hours' work before me. For an
hour I went through the books, and then a sudden impulse seized me. I
would examine some of the securities and see that none were missing. I
took the keys and went down to the strong room, a thing which I never
that I can recall had done after the bank was shut; took out some large
parcels of shares and bonds, and locked the doors again. I took them up
with me to count in my room, and compare them with the books. I had just
set to work when I heard the latch-key of the front door turn, and a
minute later Mr. Johnstone came in. 'You are at work late, Partridge,'
he said. 'I saw your light burning as I was passing. Why, hallo!' he
said with a change of voice, 'what have you got all the securities up
for? that is rather unusual, isn't it? Wasn't the strong room locked up
before the clerks went away?' It had not struck me that there was
anything strange about it, but the tone of the president's voice showed
me that there was, and my old nervousness seized me as if with a sudden
grip; and I have no doubt that the tone in which I explained my reason
for going down into the strong room and bringing up the securities added
to his suspicion. However, he said coldly: 'I am not aware of anything
that should have excited your suspicions that all was not right, and
induced you to unlock the strong room after the bank was closed.
However, as you have brought up some of the securities, and I have
nothing to do for the next half-hour, I will go through them with you.'
"He sat down by my side, and took the book containing the lists of the
securities held by the bank and I read out the number of the bonds.
'New York Centrals of five hundred dollars each.' Presently he said
sharply: 'That does not tally with the book.' He ran his eye down and
remarked: 'There are fifty missing here, running in successive numbers,
between the last two you read out.' 'Perhaps they are out of place,' I
said, and looked through the rest of the bonds, but they were not there.
'How do you account for this?' the president asked sharply. 'I cannot
account for it,' I said, bewildered. 'Oh!' he said in an awkward tone,
that particularly struck me. 'Here are your initials to all these
figures, showing that they have been paid out. When were they redeemed?'
I looked at the book; there were my initials sure enough. The bonds had
not been redeemed at all, I was certain, but there were my initials. I
looked at them thunderstruck.
"'I have the highest opinion of you, Mr. Partridge,' the president said,
'but this, you must admit, has a very curious appearance. Here I find
you have, after the bank has closed, opened the strong room, and have
got some of the securities up here, and I find that some of them are
missing, but that the book is initialled by you, so that anyone else
going through it with the securities would suppose that they had been
parted with in due course. Your own manner, if you will excuse my saying
so, strikes me as altogether suspicious. However, let us go through some
more.'
"Each bundle that we examined showed deficiencies, and although I had
not brought up one-tenth of the bonds and securities, we found a
deficiency of over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. When we had
done, Mr. Johnstone did not make a single observation beyond briefly
pointing out the numbers of the missing securities, and added: 'You see,
Mr. Partridge, I have but one course to follow. The bank has been robbed
of an immense amount. How much as yet I have no means of knowing. I find
you here with the securities brought out of the strong room at this
unusual hour. These securities were entirely in your hands, and no one
touches them but yourself. You can give me no explanation of the
deficiency, and in every case your initials are appended, as a proof
that they have been paid out in due course. Under such circumstances it
is my duty to at once give you into custody.'
"I had been getting more nervous and confused as each fresh discovery
was made, and the horrible consciousness of my position became
stronger.
"'I am innocent, sir!' I exclaimed; 'before God I am innocent!'
"'In that case, Mr. Partridge, you will no doubt be able to prove it to
the satisfaction of the jury. In my mind I confess the matter is clear.
This book in which your entries are made is your own private property,
and you keep it, I presume, in your own safe here, of which no one but
yourself has a key, and it is not the sort of book that you are in the
habit of leaving about. What you have done with the proceeds of the
bonds I know not, but that you have taken them seems to me as clear as
day. Of course the matter may be explained in some way. I hope that it
will be. You have worked here with me for the last fifteen years, and I
have hitherto not only had implicit confidence in you, but respect and
liking. I would give anything to escape the situation in which I am
placed, but my duty is clear. I must hand you over to the police.'
"'It will kill me!' I said. 'I am innocent, Mr. Johnstone, innocent as a
child, but the disgrace of this will kill me!'
"He was silent for some time, and then he said: 'I am sorry for you, Mr.
Partridge, with all my heart, and still more sorry for your wife. This
money, I suppose, is hopelessly gone in some wild speculation,'--I
again protested, but he waved to me to be silent--'and irretrievably
lost. For the sake of our long friendship and of the good lady your
wife, I will suffer you to leave this office a free man. I will take no
steps till morning. More than that, I will, if possible, keep the affair
out of the hands of the police for the next twelve hours, by which time
you ought to be across the frontier into Canada. I am risking a great
deal in doing this, but I will do it, and I will satisfy my colleagues
as well as I can. There, let no more be said. Go! and strive in future,
by a life of strict honesty, to justify the course which I am taking.'
"I murmured something, whether of thanks or protest I know not, and,
seizing my hat, went out into the air. Anyone who had noticed me on my
way home must have thought me drunk, for I know that I staggered blindly
along. Your mother will have told you what happened when I got home.
That is the tale, Roland, and it makes things look very black against
me. I was at the bank late, having opened the strong room and taken out
the securities. The president, coming in and finding me so employed,
went through the books with me, and discovered large deficiencies in the
securities, which were never handled by anyone but myself. Worst of
all, in my private book, kept always under lock and key, are my
initials, showing that I am cognizant of the securities having been
parted with. Lastly, there is my flight and my manner against me. In
answer I give my bare protest that I knew nothing about the securities
being missing, and that though the initials appear indeed to be my own,
that I certainly never signed them, though I own that the book was never
to my knowledge out of my custody at any time, and that the safe in
which it was kept was always locked up by me of an evening. That
somebody has taken the securities is clear; also that somebody has got
at my book and forged my initials.
"But it is only this bare assertion that I have against all the facts
that seem to prove me guilty. I am going west. I have made the
acquaintance of a gentleman, who has given me letters to two or three
large store-keepers in Winnipeg, where, under another name, I hope to
obtain employment. There, I trust, your mother will follow me. As for
yourself, you have told me you have been taken by Mr. Fernlea into his
office, and I trust, in spite of the terrible blot I have brought upon
our name, that you will succeed. I have, however, no hope that you will
be able to clear up the mystery of which I am the victim. Still, I will
not dissuade you from trying, and although I cannot hope, I shall pray,
day and night, that success may attend your efforts."
Roland read the letter through and through until he had almost learnt it
by heart. The next morning he took it in to Mr. Fernlea. "You know what
my object is in remaining at Brownsville, Mr. Fernlea. I should like you
to read this letter which I have received from my father. I need not say
that I shall show it to no one else. I received it yesterday evening,
and have been thinking it over all night, but I cannot see that it
furnishes me with any clue such as I had hoped. But you may think
differently."
Mr. Fernlea read the letter through to the end; then, without a word, he
turned it over and re-read it. "Frankly, Roland," he said, when he laid
it down, "is there no impression left in your mind after reading that
letter?"
"Well, sir," Roland said hesitatingly, "it seems too absurd, but I
cannot but think it a little strange that Mr. Johnstone should let my
father go off like that."
"That is it," Mr. Fernlea said. "Johnstone has the reputation of being a
pleasant gentleman adverse to trouble and contention, and desirous of
keeping on good terms with everyone, but he has nevertheless been always
sharp enough on creditors to the bank, and has several times prosecuted
when it appeared that the bank was the victim of sharp practices. I have
always wondered that no attempt to discover and arrest your father was
made when the loss was first discovered, which was, I understood, when
Johnstone examined the bonds on the morning when your father was found
missing; but now that I find he knew it before your father left, it is
still more surprising to me that he should have let him go. He assumed,
as it seems by this letter, that your father had spent all the proceeds
of the robbery; but why should he assume that?
"Your father might still have had a great number of bonds in hand, and
by arresting him at once a considerable number of the stolen securities
might have been recovered. But this is not all. There is one very
singular fact in the story. Your father was reading over the numbers of
the bonds, when Mr. Johnstone suddenly exclaimed, 'That is wrong; there
are fifty bonds missing between the last two numbers you read out. Where
are they?' Why should he have said that? As I take it, the number of the
bonds which had hitherto been read corresponded with the number of
those marked still in hand, that is to say, of those against which no
initial had been placed. But it seems that these fifty were initialled.
What was there, then, to call Johnstone's attention to the fact that
they should have been there? That is very remarkable, to say the least
of it."
Roland clasped his hands before him. "Oh, Mr. Fernlea, do you really
think--"
"I don't think anything, Roland," Mr. Fernlea said sharply. "Mr.
Johnstone is president of the bank, a prominent citizen, a man of
unblemished reputation. I simply say that these facts, stated together,
are singular, and I think they give you a clue. How that clue is to be
followed up, I cannot at present suggest, I simply affirm that it is a
clue. Now I want you to take the next train to Chicago. A client of mine
wants some enquiries made about a house which he is thinking of
purchasing. Here are the papers connected with it; you can study them as
you go along. Of course you will go to the land office and see if there
are any mortgages on it, and you will look up the titles."
Roland reached Chicago in the afternoon, where he at once set about
making the necessary enquiries. The lawyers upon whom he first called at
once showed him the titles, which appeared to him to be correct, but of
which he made an abstract for Mr. Fernlea's inspection. He then went to
the land office and found that mortgages were registered on the house.
From there he walked to the address of the owner, which he found to be
in a small street. The house was shut up. He made some enquiries
carefully among the neighbours, and found the reputation of the man was
the reverse of favourable. It was now getting late in the afternoon, and
he rode to the Central Telegraph office to send off a short message to
Mr. Fernlea with the result of his enquiries. Two or three persons were
writing their messages, and to his surprise he at once recognized in one
of them Mr. Johnstone of Brownsville.
There was nothing in the least strange that the banker should be at
Chicago, a hundred and fifty miles from Brownsville; and had it not been
that Roland had been thinking of him all day, the meeting would not have
given him a second thought. As it was, he drew back instantly and took
his place at a distant desk to write his own message. "House mortgaged
for 2500 dollars, title apparently good; vendor's house shut up,
neighbours give bad account of him; I wait instructions." Just as he had
finished, Mr. Johnstone turned from the desk and went up to the
pigeon-hole and handed in his message. A question or two was asked, and
having paid his money he left.
Roland at once went to the same pigeon-hole. The girl was in the act of
handing the message she had just received to an operator. "It is a
cipher. What tiresome things those are! one has to be so careful with
them, and there is no sense to help one."
"Mine is not a cipher," Roland said as he handed his in; "but my
handwriting is not a very clear one. Your last message ought not to be
difficult to make out, for I know Mr. Johnstone's writing is as clear as
print."
"Johnstone!" the girl said, glancing back over the other's shoulder; "it
isn't Johnstone, it is Westerton."
Roland felt a thrill shoot through him, but he answered carelessly: "Oh,
is it? I was mistaken in my man then, I thought I knew him."
An hour later he received a telegram from Mr. Fernlea in answer to that
he had sent. It simply said "Come back". He accordingly took the night
train to Brownsville, and appeared at the office as usual in the
morning.
"You have found out just what we wanted to know, Partridge. The man is a
sort of acquaintance of my client, and wanted him to let him have a
thousand dollars to-day, pending the examination of the titles. Of
course he said nothing about the mortgage already on the house. My
client believed it was all right, and would have advanced the money had
I not begged him to wait twenty-four hours; so your trip has prevented
him from throwing away a thousand dollars."
"I am very glad I went, sir, on my own account," Roland said, "for I
have made a discovery which may be of importance. I have found out that
Mr. Johnstone is in the habit of going over to Chicago and despatching
telegrams there in the name of Westerton."
And he then related the incident of the telegraph office.
"That may be of importance," Mr. Fernlea said, "but we must not place
too much importance upon it. He may possibly have sent off a message for
some friend; still, it is a clue."
So Tom Fernlea thought when Roland told him the circumstances. "I must
get you to write off again, Tom, to your cousin. You told me two days
ago that, so far, he had not found out among his acquaintances that
anyone here connected with the bank was speculating. The thing now is to
ask among them if anyone knows of a Mr. Westerton of Chicago, dealing in
ventures of that sort."