BOLINGBROKE MILLWEED OUT OF A PLACE.
Mr. Longbrook took the bills, and a smile of satisfaction overspread
his troubled face. He looked at Dory with astonishment, and then
glanced from him to Bolingbroke. The latter was quite as much
surprised as the owner of the four hundred and fifty dollars.
Dory had not given a hint to his companion or to the engineer that he
had the money. He had concealed the fact from prudential motives. He
had told his mother all about it, but he was not inclined to lead
either of his associates in the boat into temptation.
“I see,” said Mr. Longbrook, nodding his head at Dory. “Your friend
has concluded to give up the money, and expects me to say nothing more
about it.”
“I never saw the money before; and I didn’t know till this minute that
Dory had it,” protested Bolingbroke earnestly.
“He tells the exact truth,” added Dory. “Neither he nor any one but my
mother, who is at Genverres, knew that I had the money. I think you
had better hear the whole story, and then you can judge for yourself.”
Mr. Longbrook was quite willing to hear the story, for he was deeply
interested by this time. He asked Dory and his companion into the
store, and locked the door again. Bolingbroke gave his part of the
narrative first, and Dory finished it out.
“I believed Bolingbroke told me the truth; and I accepted Mr.
Lingerwell’s statement that one of the two must have stolen the
money,” said Dory. “When the skipper and engineer left the Juniper to
catch my passenger, I looked the steamer over, and found the
pocket-book. I put the piece of newspaper into the place where I took
out the bills, hoping that Mr. Lingerwell would suppose he had the
bills until he got to Burlington.”
Then followed the skipper’s account of the quarrel on board of the
Juniper, which confirmed Dory’s statement. It was as clear to the
merchant as it was to Dory, that the head man had stolen the money.
“Where is Lingerwell now?” asked Mr. Longbrook.
“He is on board of the Juniper, tied hand and foot; and the engineer
is keeping guard over him. He did not know I had been on board of the
Juniper in his absence; and he was sure that Greeze must have taken
the money from the pocket-book, and put the newspaper in its place.
You can do what you like with him.”
“I knew that man was a villain!” exclaimed Bolingbroke when Dory had
finished his explanation. “I saw why I was sent to the safe for the
cash-book, when it was almost within reach of his hands; and that was
one of my reasons for running away. I was a fool, but I was
frightened.”
“I wish I had known that Lingerwell was a rascal a little sooner.
Since he went after this young man yesterday, I have been examining my
books. I am satisfied that he has robbed me of hundreds, if not
thousands, of dollars. I can see just how he has done it. Now we will
go down and see him, and we will have a warrant for his arrest.”
By this time it was seven o’clock, and the merchant departed for the
warrant and the officer to serve it. Dory and Bolingbroke went with
him. As they passed the Van Ness House, Dory was not a little surprised
to see his uncle standing at the entrance of the hotel with quite a
little crowd of boys. The skipper counted ten of them, and he wondered
if they were to be pupils in the Beech-Hill Industrial School.
“You are here in good time, Theodore,” demanded Captain Gildrock, as
he recognized his nephew.
“I came up on a little business, uncle,” replied Dory.
“Very important business it was to me, Captain Gildrock,” added Mr.
Longbrook. “I am under very great obligations to him.”
The breakfast-bell rang, and the boys were sent in to obtain the
morning meal. The merchant gave an outline of the loss and recovery of
his money. The captain asked a great many questions, which were all
answered to his satisfaction. Then he insisted that the party should
breakfast with him.
Mr. Longbrook accepted the invitation, and they entered the hotel. In
the vestibule the merchant met the justice to whom he intended to
apply for the warrant. He stated his case to him, and the gentleman
promised to have the warrant ready by the time he had finished his
breakfast. The party seated themselves at the table.
“A telegram for you, Captain Gildrock,” said one of the clerks,
bringing the message to him.
“‘Dory away; no pilot; cannot go up the lake.--JEPSON,’” read the
captain from the despatch in his hand. “Then you did not come down in
the Sylph, Theodore. Of course you did not. I have heard the story of
your movements during the night. I telegraphed to you last night from
here to come down in the steamer, and take the new scholars to Beech
Hill.”
“I have the Goldwing here, and I can take them home in her,” replied
Dory.
“But I have ten boys with me: there they are at the other table. They
are about as wild and harum-scarum a set of youngsters as I ever saw
in my life. But we will take all that out of them in a few days, when
I get them to Beech Hill,” replied the captain confidently.
“I can take the crowd up in the Goldwing.”
“We will see about that when we have done breakfast, and you have
disposed of your prisoner.”
“The Juniper is at your service, Captain Gildrock.”
“Thank you: perhaps we may want to use her.”
Mr. Longbrook inquired in regard to the sloop that had been sunk. It
was not likely that Lingerwell would be able to pay for the mischief
he had done; and the merchant said he had a sloop, not a very fine
one, which he was willing to give as a substitute for the one lost.
Bolingbroke was delighted with this offer, and promptly accepted it.
After breakfast the party proceeded to the wharf where the Juniper
lay, the recruits for the Industrial School being required to report
at the hotel at ten o’clock. Mr. Longbrook found things on board of
his steam-launch precisely as represented to him by Dory. Lingerwell
still lay on the floor in the after part of the steamer. Greeze sat
near him, and apparently had not taken his eye off him since the
departure of Dory early in the morning.
The officer with the warrant had not yet put in an appearance. The
merchant, before he showed himself to his delinquent head man, called
the engineer up the wharf, and questioned him in regard to the events
of the night. His statement did not vary from that of Dory and
Bolingbroke, though Greeze as yet had no suspicion that the money he
had been charged with stealing had been taken from the safe of his
employer.
“I think there are enough of us to handle this man,” said Mr.
Longbrook, as he returned to the steam-launch. “You may untie his
hands, Greeze.”
“With fair play I can handle him alone,” replied the engineer, as he
proceeded to release the wrists of the culprit on the floor. Greeze
helped him to get upon his feet, and then gave him a seat opposite the
merchant.
“Well, Lingerwell, I find you did not capture the thief,” said the
storekeeper.
“I did not: he found an accomplice in Dory Dornwood, who helped him to
escape,” replied the prisoner doggedly; and, as he had no knowledge of
what had transpired at the store, he was not prepared to admit any
thing.
“But how does it happen that I find you a prisoner, bound hand and
foot?” asked the merchant.
“I am the victim of an outrage. I had some difficulty with the
engineer in the night, and he joined forces with Dory against me. By
taking me unawares, they succeeded in making me a prisoner. I had some
money with me, and dropped my pocket-book on the floor near the wheel.
When I found it, the money was taken out, and its place filled with a
piece of newspaper.” This statement also confirmed that of Dory.
“How much money did you happen to have with you?” inquired his
employer.
“About a hundred dollars. Of course I knew that the engineer had done
this, for no one but Greeze and myself had been on board of the
steamer.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“As sure as I can be of any thing in this world,” persisted
Lingerwell.
“Are you correct about the amount of money in your pocket-book?”
“I would not say there was just a hundred dollars in it, but about
that amount.”
“Wasn’t there four hundred and fifty dollars in the pocket-book?”
demanded the merchant sharply.
“I am sure there was not,” the culprit persisted.
“The pocket-book was not taken by the thief: do you happen to have it
about you, Lingerwell?”
“After I found it was empty, I laid it on the rail for a minute, and
it fell overboard. It was so dark I could not recover it,” replied the
prisoner.
While Lingerwell was inventing and uttering this falsehood, Mr.
Longbrook picked up a piece of newspaper, folded in the shape of a
bank-bill, which he found lying on the floor of the steamer.
“I suppose this is the piece of paper you found in the pocket-book in
place of the money?”
“That is the piece of paper.”
“Here is the rest of the paper,” added Dory, taking a newspaper from
his pocket.
The merchant put the two pieces of paper together, and found they were
part of the same sheet.
“Then it was this Dory that robbed me of my money!” exclaimed the
prisoner savagely.
“Robbed you of my money, you mean, Lingerwell. Dory has returned to me
the money he took from the pocket-book you hid under the ceiling of
the launch. Lingerwell, to the crime of robbery you add the meanness
and the baseness of charging it upon an innocent person,” said the
merchant sternly. “Yesterday I would have trusted you with all I had
in the world. To-day I find you are a thief and a villain. Here comes
the officer with a warrant for you.”
Lingerwell subsided at once; in fact, he broke down like a child, and
cried like a baby. He had not supposed he could be discovered so
readily, but rogues are very apt to make blunders. The officer marched
him to the lockup; and we may as well add here, that he was sentenced,
in due time, to the State prison for three years.
“I suppose I shall be wanted in the store, Mr. Longbrook?” asked
Bolingbroke, when the culprit had been marched off.
“If you had not run away, you would have been all right, young man,”
replied the merchant. “Yesterday I engaged two experienced men at very
low wages, and they were to come this morning. I shall not need you.”
“If it is a fair question, Mr. Longbrook, how much do you pay the two
men?” asked Captain Gildrock.
“One five, and the other six, dollars a week.”
The captain nodded his head, but made no reply.
“The fact is, there are three times as many clerks as there are
places,” added the storekeeper.
Bolingbroke was terribly disappointed to lose even a temporary place.