The next day at noon, after a hurried lunch at the restaurant, Alec
stopped at the post-office on his way back to the factory. He wanted
to add a few lines to the birthday letter which he had written
Philippa the night before. He wrote them standing at the public desk;
then, drawing the old wallet from his pocket, he took out the
long-cherished gold coin from its wrapping of tissue-paper and
dropped it into the envelope.
"I'm afraid it isn't safe to send it that way," he said to himself,
balancing the letter on two fingers. "It is so heavy that any one
could guess what's in it, and it might wear through. I did want her
to have it in gold, but I suppose it will be more sensible to send a
postal order."
After a moment's deliberation, he turned to the window beside the
desk, and asked for a money-order blank. Some one came in while he
was filling it out, but he was so absorbed in his occupation that he
did not look up until he turned to push the slip and the money
through the window bars toward the clerk. Then he saw that it was
Ralph Bently who stood behind him, flipping a postal order in his
fingers, impatient to have it cashed. They exchanged careless nods,
and Alec, sealing his letter, dropped it into the box and hurried
back to his work. As the outer door swung shut, Bently leaned his
arms on the window ledge and spoke to the clerk, who was an intimate
friend of his.
"Say, Billy," he exclaimed, "let me see that coin that Stoker paid
you just now, will you? Push it out here a minute."
"What's up?" inquired the clerk, as he complied with the request.
"Oh, nothing much. I just wanted to look at the date." As he examined
it, he gave a long whistle. "Whe-ew! It's the same. Curious
coincidence, I must say! This young brother takes up a collection
Sunday night. Avery drops in her five-dollar gold piece that she got
as a prize, you know. Collector turns his back on the meeting to
count the money, hands in a report of only four dollars and
ninety-six cents. Vows he never saw the gold in the box. A thorough
search of the room fails to bring it to light. Nobody can imagine how
it disappeared. The next morning he has a coin of the same date to
dispose of."
"Who is the fellow, anyway?" asked the clerk.
"That's just it! Who is he? Nobody knows. He came here from some
little place back in the country several months ago, and went to work
in the Downs & Company shoe factory."
"If that's the case, why don't you ask your uncle about him? He's
both the company and the manager in the firm, isn't he? He'd know
whether the fellow was to be trusted or not."
"I intend to," was the answer; "and say, Billy, if you don't mind,
I'll take that coin. Here's its equivalent."
He pushed a rustling new bank-note toward his friend. "See me play
Sherlock Holmes now. I always did think I'd make a good detective."
"Look out," was the warning reply. "You have only a slim bit of
circumstantial evidence, and it would be hard on the boy to start
such a tale if there were no truth in it."
With the coin in his pocket, Ralph sauntered down to his uncle's
office. It was some time before the busy man could spare time to
listen to him.
"Well," he said at last, looking up, pen in hand, "what can I do for
you this morning, Ralph?" He had always taken a special interest in
his sister's only son, and now smiled kindly as he approached.
"Oh, nothing, thank you, uncle. I just dropped in to ask you about
one of the employees in the factory. Who is this Alec Stoker, and
where did he come from?"
The manager's brow contracted an instant in thought. The factory was
a large one, and the roll of employees long.
"Stoker! Stoker!" he repeated. Then his face cleared. "Ah! He is the
nephew of the best salesman we have on the road. Came well
recommended from a little town called Ridgeville, I believe. He seems
to be a faithful, energetic boy, and has already pushed up to one
promotion."
"Did any one recommend him besides his uncle?" asked Ralph,
meaningly.
"No, that was sufficient. But you evidently have a reason for these
inquiries. Do you know anything about him?"
"No, only--" he shrugged his shoulders. "Something happened last
night that put me on my guard. Didn't Avery tell you?"
At the mention of his daughter's name in connection with Ralph's
insinuations, Mr. Windom was instantly alert. He laid down his pen.
"No, tell me!" he demanded.
In as few words as possible, Ralph told of the disappearance of
Avery's money from the collection box, and the discovery he had made
at the post-office. When he had finished, Mr. Windom shook his head
gravely.
"You are making a very serious charge, Ralph," he said, "and on very
slight provocation. At sixteen one is apt to jump at hasty
conclusions. Take the advice of sober sixty, my boy. It is a
remarkable coincidence, I admit, but even the common law regards a
man as innocent until he is proved guilty, and surely a society that
stands for all that the Christian Endeavour does would not fall below
the common law in its sense of justice. I'm surprised that its
members should be so quick to whisper suspicion and point the
accusing finger."
"Oh, I'm not a member!" Ralph exclaimed, hastily. "I am perfectly
free to say what I think. Somehow I've never liked the fellow from
the start. He takes so much on himself, and seems to want to push
himself in where he doesn't belong."
Mr. Windom, swinging round in his revolving chair toward his desk,
picked up his pen again. "Stoker is all right so far as I know," he
said. "It would be a very small thing to let a personal dislike
influence you in this."
He spoke sternly. Adjusting his eyeglasses, he pulled some papers
toward him, and Ralph, feeling that he desired the conversation to
close, backed out of the office with a hasty good day. His face
flushed at his uncle's implied rebuke, and he resolved that if there
was any possible way, he would prove that his suspicion was right. He
stopped at the post-office on his way home, to speak to the clerk
again.
"Billy," he said, in a confidential tone, "do a favour for me. Just
drop a line to the postmaster at that address, will you, and ask him
to tell you what he knows about a former resident of that place--one
Alec Stoker? I'm hot on his track now, and I'm going to trace this
thing out if it takes all the year."
"Found out anything?" asked the clerk.
"Ask me later," Ralph answered, with a knowing look. "It's a
detective's policy to keep mum."
So the poison of suspicion began its work. In a few days, the answer
came to the clerk's letter. Alec Stoker was O. K. so far as the
postmaster of Ridgeville knew. His grandfather had been one of the
most highly respected citizens of the place, but--then followed an
account of Alec's father. This the self-appointed young detective
seized eagerly.
"Humph! Thought there was bad blood somewhere!" he exclaimed. He took
the report to his uncle, who read it gravely, and dismissed him with
a short lecture on the cruelty of repeating such stories to the
intentional hurt of a fellow creature. Stung to anger by this
additional reproof, Ralph was more determined than before to prove
that his suspicions were correct. He carried the letter to the
president of the society, urging investigation.
"No!" was the determined answer; "better lose a thousand times that
amount than accuse him falsely. Because his father was dishonest is
no proof that he is a thief. Drop it, Bently. Don't put a
stumbling-block in the poor fellow's way by spreading such
insinuations as that. He seems one of the most earnest and sincere
members we ever had in the society."
With a muttered reply about wolves in sheep's clothing, Ralph took
his letter to the treasurer and secretary. Meeting the same response
from them, he talked the matter over with some of the members, who
were more willing to listen than the others, and less conscientious
about repeating their surmises. So the poison spread and the story
grew. It came to Alec's ears at last. There is always some
thoughtless talebearer ready to gather up the arrows of gossip and
thrust them into the quivering heart of the victim.
Then the matter dropped so far as the society was concerned. Alec
simply stayed away. Some there were who never noticed his absence.
Some were confirmed in their suspicions by it. Ralph Bently declared
that it was proof enough for him that Stoker felt guilty. If nothing
was the matter, why should he have dropped out so suddenly when he
had pretended all along to be so interested in the services and had
taken such an active part in them?
The president, noting his absence, promised himself to look him up
sometime, but such promises, never finding definite dates, are never
fulfilled. The member of the visiting committee who had called on
Alec during his illness, and was really interested in him, started to
call again. Something interrupted him, however, and he eased his
conscience, which kept whispering that it was his duty to go, by
sending him one of the printed invitations they always sent to
strangers, cordially urging a regular attendance at the meetings.
Then the society went selfishly on in its old channels, unmindful of
the young life set adrift again in a sea of doubt and discouragement,
with no hand held out to draw it back from the peril of shipwreck.
The despairing mood that had settled down on Alec during the summer
seized him again. He would work doggedly on during the day, thinking
of Flip and his Aunt Eunice, and feeling that for their sakes he must
stick bravely at it. There was no other position open to him. But it
was almost intolerable staying in a town where people not only knew
of his father's disgrace, but pointed accusing fingers at him. His
sensitiveness on the subject made him grow more and more morbid. He
brooded over it until he imagined that every one who happened to
glance steadily in his direction must be saying, inwardly, "Like
father, like son."
He knew that Ralph Bently had gone to Mr. Windom with his
information. The talebearer had given him an exaggerated account of
the interview. He felt that there was no longer any use for him to
hope the manager would ever raise him to the position of his trusted
assistant, no matter how thoroughly he might learn the details of the
business. For that reason he studied the newspapers for the
advertisements of help wanted. He intended to make a change at the
first opportunity.
Once, crossing a street, he met the Windom carriage coming toward
him. Avery, fair and gracious beside her mother, was bowing to an
acquaintance. He started forward eagerly. He had not seen her since
the last night he attended church, but the picture of her pure, sweet
face, upturned like a white flower as she listened to the service,
had been with him ever since. It had come before him many an evening
when, with head bowed on his hands, he had leaned over the little
table in his room, gazing intently into vacancy; it had laid a
detaining hand on him when he would have flung out of the house in
his desperation, in search of some diversion to keep him from
brooding over his fate.
Now they were almost face to face. Forgetting everything but his
pleasure in seeing her once more, and remembering her smiling
greetings in the past, his hand went up involuntarily toward his hat;
but he stopped half-way, for, turning toward her mother just then,
she called her attention to something on the other side of the
street.
"Just what I might have expected!" muttered Alec, thinking she
purposely avoided him. His teeth were set and his face white with
mortification. But in his heart he had not expected it. He had taken
a vague comfort in the thought that she would believe in his
innocence, no matter who else doubted. She had insisted so kindly on
his never giving the lost money another thought.
[Illustration: "HIS HAND WENT UP INVOLUNTARILY TOWARD HIS HAT."]
If there had been only one accusation to deny, he could have gone to
her with that, he thought. He would have compelled her to believe his
innocence by the very force of his earnestness. But the knowledge of
the accusation against his father silenced him.
"Hello! You nearly knocked me down, Stoker. Where are you going?" It
was one of the factory boys who asked the question, and Alec,
hurrying down the street with unseeing eyes, became suddenly aware
that he had run against some one who had caught him by the arm, and
was laughingly shaking him to make him answer. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, I don't know, and I don't care," was the reckless answer.
"All right, come along if you want good company," was the joking
reply, and the other boy, slipping his arm in Alec's, turned his
steps to a corner where a jolly crowd were waiting for him to join
them.
After that there were no more lonely evenings for Alec, when he sat
with bowed head beside his table, staring into vacancy. He should
have had another promotion in March. Alec felt that he was proficient
enough to be advanced, and he told himself bitterly that the reason
he was not was because the manager mistrusted him.
It was true that the manager did distrust him. Not on account of the
suspicions which Ralph Bently had sowed broadcast, but because, made
doubly watchful by the hint, he discovered how Alec was spending his
evenings. Although the work in the factory was done as well as ever,
he knew that no one could keep the company and late hours that Alec
did and not fall short of the high standard he had set for the one
who was ultimately to become his assistant.
The months slipped slowly by. Philippa wrote that the garden was gay
with spring crocuses and snowdrops; then that Ridgeville had never
been such a bower of roses as it was that June. But to Alec the
months were marked only by his little winnings and little losings.
There came a time in the early autumn when Alec crept up the creaking
stairs to his room, haggard and pale in the gray light of the
breaking dawn. He had been out all night and lost not only all the
money he had put away in the bank, the savings of seven endless
months, but he was in debt for a greater sum than all his next
month's salary would amount to.
Heavy-eyed and dizzy from the long hours spent in the close little
gambling den, reeking with stifling tobacco smoke, Alec dragged
himself to his room. After he had closed the door, he stood leaning
with his back against it for a moment. He was facing two pictures
that gazed at him from the mantel: One was the patient, wistful face
of his Aunt Eunice; the other was Philippa's, looking straight out at
him with such honest, sincere eyes, such eager questioning, that he
could not meet their clear gaze. He strode across the room and turned
both faces to the wall. Then, without undressing, he threw himself on
the bed with a groan.
He was late reaching the factory that morning, for he fell asleep at
once into a sleep of exhaustion, so deep that the usual sounds did
not arouse him. As it was his first offence, the foreman passed it by
in silence; but, faint from lack of food (there had been no time for
breakfast), worn by the excitement and high nervous tension of the
night before, he was in no condition to do his work. He made one
mistake after another, until, made more nervous by repeated accidents
both to the material and machinery he was handling, he made a blunder
too serious to pass without a report to the manager. It involved the
loss of considerable money to the company.
"You'll be lucky if that mistake doesn't give you your walking
papers," said the foreman. "You'll hear from it at the end of the
month."
If there had been only himself to consider, Alec would have welcomed
his dismissal, but there was Flip and his Aunt Eunice. How they
believed in him! How proud they were of him! Not for worlds would he
have them know how far he had fallen short of their ideal of him. So
for their sakes he waited in feverish anxiety to know the result.