Then Myles told Kate of the note he had received that morning from his “nice old Oxygen gentleman,” as they called him among themselves, and said that he didn’t know but what he ought to accept the invitation for that evening. “My friends are becoming so few that I must do some extra cultivating of those who are left, you know,” he added, with an attempt at cheerfulness.
“Aren’t you ashamed to say that your friends are becoming few, when only yesterday you made a thousand new ones all at once?” replied Kate, indignantly. “At the same time, I do think you ought to dine with your Oxygen gentleman; who knows but what he may prove a fairy godfather in disguise, and your future may turn from this very evening! Yes, decidedly, you must go and dine with him, and you can come out home on the midnight train. In the meantime I shall have told father and mother all about you, so that they may be prepared to receive you with due honor.”
“Be sure you tell them every thing,” said Myles, “for if you don’t I shall. I am not going to row this race under any but my own true colors.”
“Yes, of course, I shall have to mention the one little neglect of duty that Mr. Haxall, hateful man! has made such a mountain of; but I think it would be just as well, dear, not to say any thing about the other cause of your being dismissed. It would only make them feel badly; and, as such a thing can never possibly happen again, why, what is the use?”
Then sunny-faced Kate had to hurry away to catch her train, but she left Myles so much happier and more hopeful than he was when she knocked at his door that he could hardly realize how wretched he had been.
“I tell you what,” he said to himself as he dressed for dinner, “a good sister is one of the best things a fellow can have in this world.”
Myles reached the Oxygen some time before the hour set for dinner, and was in the reading-room when his friend entered.
“My dear boy, I am very glad you were able to come,” said the old gentleman, advancing toward him with outstretched hand and beaming face. “I wanted to meet you this evening on purpose to congratulate you. There, not a word! I know what your modesty prompts you to say; but I read the whole story in the morning paper, and have felt proud of my proxy all day. I hope the Phonograph people have rated you a handsome increase of salary in view of the glory you have shed upon them.”
“On the contrary,” said Myles, “they have dismissed me from the paper.”
“Dismissed you? Impossible!”
“They did not find it so,” replied Myles; “but, to tell the truth, I was not dismissed for what I did, but rather for what I did not do.”
“I am extremely sorry to hear it,” said the old gentleman; “extremely sorry; but let us have dinner first, and talk it all over afterward; things always look so much brighter after dinner than they do before it.”
At the dinner-table Myles was in the very act of raising a glass of wine to his lips when his promise to Kate darted into his mind. With a flushed face he set the glass quickly down, saying, in answer to his companion’s inquiring look, “I took a pledge to-day, sir, never again to touch a drop of wine, and so you will please excuse me for not breaking it.”
“Excuse you for not breaking it! My dear boy, I would never excuse you if you did. It was a fine thing to do, and may you have the strength to stick to that pledge through life! No young man can have a better recommendation, when seeking to make his way in the world, than that he is strictly temperate. I even place it ahead of a character for honesty among my employés.”
“Do you, then, employ many men, sir?” asked Myles, with a vague hope that something might come to him through this interview.
“Well, yes, a thousand or two, more or less,” replied the other, laughing, “but not exactly in your line of business.”
“I don’t know that I have any line of business just at present,” said Myles; and this brought them back to the subject of his dismissal from the paper. The old gentleman asked such shrewd questions, and expressed such genuine interest and sympathy, that, before he knew it, Myles was telling him the whole story exactly as he had told it to Kate.
“The city editor was perfectly right,” said the old gentleman, when Myles had finished; “and I should have done exactly as he did under the circumstances. He could not have acted otherwise, in justice to the paper or the other workers on it. Still, there were extenuating circumstances. You have profited by your lesson and have done nobly since. It seems to me that the paper will make a mistake if it loses you. Suppose I go to see this city editor and talk the matter over with him? Should you have any objections?”
“Certainly not,” answered Myles; “but I can tell you beforehand that it won’t do the least bit of good. Mr. Haxall never allows himself to be influenced by outsiders.”
“I shall try it, at any rate, and will let you know the result on Monday,” said the kindly old gentleman. Then Myles was obliged to bid him good-night and hurry off to catch the midnight train.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHO ROBBED THE SAFE?
WHILE Myles Manning was struggling with one of the great trials of his life in New York, events were taking place at Mountain Junction in which he would have been greatly interested had he known of them. In the first place, Ben Watkins’ uncle, the division superintendent, had returned, and, with the powerful aid of the 50th Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., was proceeding vigorously against the railroad strikers in that part of the country. Several leaders were arrested and locked up to await trial, but Jacob Allen, who was supposed to be chief among them, was not to be found, though every effort was made to discover his hiding-place and a large reward was offered for his apprehension. He had not been seen in town since the morning of his rescue from the jail, and, though his little house was closely watched, it could not be discovered that he had any communication with his family. Still, the efforts for his capture were not relaxed, for the fall term of court would open at Mountain Junction on the following Monday, and it was deemed important that Allen’s case, together with those of his associates, should then be tried.
The second event of interest to Myles was the return to town of Ben Watkins himself, and the consequences that followed immediately upon it. He had been released by the strikers who captured him, together with Lieutenant Easter and his command, in a town about forty miles away, and left at liberty to work his way back as best he could. This he succeeded in doing, and he reached Mountain Junction about the same time as his uncle.
Ben became greatly excited when he learned of his uncle’s return and of Myles Manning’s departure. He inquired at the hotel office if the latter had left any letter or package for him, and on being told that he had not the young man broke forth into a torrent of abuse, not only against Myles, but against all reporters, whom he denounced as a prying, sneaking set of fellows, unfit to be admitted into decent society.
All this was heard by several persons, including Billings, who, concealed behind his immense shirt-collar, was sitting in the hotel office. He listened quietly for a few minutes, but when Ben began to include all reporters in his abuse the little man could no longer stand it. He jumped up and, stepping squarely in front of the bully, declared that he was a reporter, and demanded that the other make an instant apology for his words, or prepare to suffer the consequences.
“And who will make me suffer, I should like to know?” cried Ben, gazing with contempt upon the absurd figure cut by this champion of reporters.
“Perhaps I will,” answered Billings, affecting his languid drawl, “or perhaps I will leave it to my friend, ‘Lord Steerem,’ don’t you know.”
“You impudent puppy!” screamed Ben in a fury, now recognizing Billings as the reporter who had made him the laughing-stock of all New London. “If you weren’t so small as to be beneath contempt I’d thrash you to within an inch of your life. Now clear out of here before I hurt you, and don’t you ever dare come in my way again.”
“I’m a little threshing-machine myself,” answered Billings, coolly, “and I am geared up to just about your size, Mr. Bigman, So come on if you dare. I don’t care that” – snapping his fingers in Ben’s face – “for you or your bluster.”
Ben aimed a blow at him, which the reporter cleverly dodged. Before there was a chance for another, the by-standers, who were vastly entertained by Billings’ exhibition of pluck, rushed in and separated the two, declaring that Ben ought to be ashamed of himself to strike at a fellow not half his size.
Ben sulkily left the hotel, vowing vengeance against both Billings and Myles, while the little man, who was prevented from following him, entertained his captors with the story of “Lord Steerem,” the famous coxswain.
The division superintendent was a harsh man, who entertained no affection for his nephew, and had only given him his position because he was his brother’s son. He suspected Ben’s unfitness for the place, and had been on the point of discharging him several times. Now, when Ben entered the office, he found his uncle greatly dissatisfied with his conduct of affairs during the preceding four days.
“If it had not been for your overbearing manner and absurd display of authority,” he said to Ben, “there would have been no serious outbreak here, nor any destruction of the company’s property. Now I’ll trouble you for the key to the safe.”
With all his known faults Ben had never been suspected of dishonesty by his uncle, who was obliged to trust his assistant implicitly in many things.
Ben hesitated a moment and then said that he had left the key in his room for greater safety, and would be obliged to go there for it.
“A pretty place your room is to leave a thing of such value!” growled the superintendent. “You should not have let it go out of your possession for an instant.”
“I was afraid I might be robbed by the strikers,” answered Ben.
“Nonsense! The strikers are not the sort of fellows to rob individuals. You ought to know that as well as I. Now hurry up and get the key. I must have the books out of the safe at once.”
Ben left the office and in a few minutes returned. With a well assumed air of agitation he said that the key was nowhere to be found, and that it must have been stolen from his room during his absence from town.
“Whom do you suspect of stealing it?” demanded his uncle.
“I don’t suspect anybody unless it is some of the strikers.”
“The strikers again! Always the strikers,” sneered the other. “Well, sir, we will soon find out. If the key was stolen it was done for the purpose of robbing the safe. I shall have the lock picked, and if any thing is missing I will believe that the key was taken from your room as you say. If every thing is all right in the safe I shall be forced to believe that you have lost the key, and have trumped up this story to conceal your carelessness. In that case the position of assistant superintendent of this division will instantly become vacant, for I shall have no further use for you.”
An hour later the lock was picked and the safe opened. The superintendent carefully examined its contents, taking from it every book and bundle of papers.
“Well, sir,” he said, turning to Ben after satisfying himself that every thing was as he left it, “what have you to say now?”
“I don’t see any money package,” answered Ben, stooping and peering into the empty safe.
“Money package! What money package?”
“One containing a thousand dollars that came by express from the treasurer the day you went away. I receipted for it in your name and locked it up in the safe, but it doesn’t seem to be there now.”
“No, I should say it wasn’t!” exclaimed the superintendent, rather staggered by this proof that his nephew’s story of being robbed was true, and, searching his face keenly, “You are sure there is no mistake about that package?”
“Certainly not, sir. You will find a copy of the receipt I gave for it in the blotter and the sum entered in the cash-book.”
Examination proved both of these statements to be true.
“Did you say that the money came from the treasurer’s office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then one or more of the bills it contained must have been marked, for that is a precaution I never knew the treasurer to neglect.”
A dispatch sent to the general office of the company, informing the treasurer of the robbery and asking if any of the bills in that package could be identified, set his clerks to examining a certain little memorandum-book.
In a very short time a reply reached Mountain Junction. Yes, in package number so and so, containing one thousand dollars, sent to the division superintendent on such a date, one fifty-dollar bill was privately marked in the manner usual with the treasurer.
On the following day the division superintendent spent several hours in the only bank of Mountain Junction, where he and the cashier closely examined every fifty-dollar bill among its deposits, but none bearing the private mark of the treasurer of the railroad company was to be found. Just as they had satisfied themselves of this the proprietor of the principal hotel came in to make his weekly deposit of funds, which he always did on Saturday.
After he had gone the cashier returned to the private office in which the superintendent still sat.
“Here are two more fifties that have just come in,” he said. “Perhaps you had better look at them.”
The first one was not marked, but the second! Yes, it bore the fatal sign, a tiny red cross made in a spot where it would never be detected unless a person knew just where to look for it.
“Then you’ve struck the trail at last?” said the cashier.
“Yes, and I’ll follow it up close while it is fresh,” answered the superintendent. “What a bit of luck it is that this very bill should be passed right here in town. Why, we’ll have the thief locked up inside of three days.”
Then the superintendent went to the hotel, and taking the proprietor to one side, asked him if he could recollect taking in any fifty-dollar bills during the past week.
“Yes, I took in two of them, and have just now deposited them along with some other money in the bank,” was the answer.
“Can you remember who gave them to you?”
“Oh, yes; one came from a drummer who left on Monday, the day before the strike broke out, and the other came from a New York reporter, who only went away yesterday.”
“Was there any unusual circumstance attending the receipt of either of these bills?”
“No – why, yes, there was too! The reporter was an impudent young dog, and didn’t have any money when I first asked him to pay his bill. He was going out of town and I made him leave his watch as security. The next morning he redeemed it and paid his bill with one of those fifties.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No; but it is on the register. Here it is. Manning; Myles Manning, New York City. I think he was a friend of your nephew. Anyhow, they had drinks together the night he came.”
“Will you kindly send a messenger to my office with word that I should like to see my nephew here for a minute?”
“Certainly.”
When Ben came he found his uncle sitting with the landlord in the latter’s room.
“Do you know a New York reporter named Manning?” was the first question put to him.
“To be sure I do. He was in my class at X – , and was out here this week doing the strike for the Phonograph.”
“What sort of a character does he bear?”
“Why, pretty fair, I believe; but of course I wouldn’t like to say any thing against an old classmate.”
“In the present case if you know any thing about the young man it is your duty to tell it. He is suspected of taking that thousand dollars.”
Ben gave a well-acted start of surprise.
“Oh, that can’t be,” he said. “Myles Manning would never do such a thing as that. He may be a little wild, but he couldn’t be a thief.”
“What do you mean by a little wild?”
“Oh, takes an occasional drink and plays a game now and then.”
“Did you and he drink together the night he came here?”
“I believe we did have one or two glasses.”
“Did he get drunk?”
“No, not exactly what you might call drunk.”
“Did you play cards?”
“Yes, we had a game or two.”
“For money?”
“Yes.”
“Did Manning win?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“Did he lose?”
“I believe he did.”
“How much?”
“Pretty near all he had, I guess. At least he complained of being cleaned out.”
“Did he complain of this to you?”
“Yes, and tried to borrow money of me to pay his hotel bill.”
“And you refused to lend it?”
“Yes. I told him I was short myself.”
“What did he say to that?”
“Oh, he got mad and said he was bound to have his money back some way.”
“Did you win his money?”
“No, sir.”
“Who did?”
“I think Lieutenant Easter must have won it, for he was the only one playing with us.”
“While Manning was in your room did he know that the key of my safe was in your possession?”
“I think he did.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because it fell from my pocket when I drew out my handkerchief while we were playing cards, and I said then that I guessed it was not safe there, and that I should hide it in my room.”
“Did he see where you put it?”
“I don’t know, but he might have, for I had no thought of concealing it from him.”
“Have you had any other cause to be suspicions of him?”
“Not in connection with the money.”
“In connection with any thing else, then?”
“Well, he did seem to be pretty thick with the strikers.”
“In what way?”
“In telling them of our plans. Both Lieutenant Easter and I thought he told them of our plan to send a train through, and so gave them the chance to capture it and us. Manning was with us, and when they asked him what he was doing there, he produced a note from Jake Allen, which said he was their friend and must be treated as such.”
“How did they treat him?”
“I don’t know; but he was the only one left behind when they carried us off, and that looked very suspicious to me.”
“Well,” said the superintendent, “from all accounts this Manning is a fellow who will bear pretty close watching. I won’t say yet that he robbed my safe, but I must confess things begin to look that way. I wish you would show me your room, Ben, and the one Manning occupied while he was here.”
So the superintendent, his nephew, and the landlord went up to No. 16, where Ben showed the corner of a bureau drawer in which he said the key had been hidden. Then they went to the room that had been Myles’, only three doors away. In answer to their knock Billings’ voice shouted: “Come in!” He now occupied it, and was sitting up by the window writing.
“Excuse the intrusion,” said the landlord, “but these gentlemen have a particular reason for wishing to see this room, and I thought perhaps you would not mind.”
“Oh, not at all,” answered Billings, scowling at Ben. “I will leave and let them have it all to themselves if they say so.”
They did not say so, and he did not leave, but sat watching them closely and wondering what they were up to.
Ben in particular seemed anxious to examine every article of furniture in the room very closely. He looked behind the bureau and peered under the wash-stand.
“What do you expect to find?” asked his uncle.
“I don’t expect to find any thing, but I thought it just possible that he might have hidden the envelope somewhere in this room if he took it. Of course he didn’t, though. He wouldn’t do such a thing. Hello! what’s this?”
As Ben uttered this exclamation he was gazing intently at the floor close to one wall of the room and near the door.
“What’s what? I don’t see any thing,” said his uncle, looking at the floor.
“Neither do I,” replied Ben, “but I just trod on something that felt like paper under the carpet.”
“Of course,” broke in the landlord, “we always put paper under our carpets.”
“But this has a peculiar feeling, like an extra thickness of paper.”
“Why don’t you look under the carpet, then, and see what it is?” asked the superintendent.
“I would rather not, uncle. He is my friend, you know.”
“Nonsense! I hope he isn’t your friend if what we suspect of him is true. But step out of the way and let me see what wonderful discovery you have made. It is probably only a crease in the floor paper.”
So saying the superintendent stooped, inserted his hand beneath the edge of the carpet and drew forth the identical express envelope that the package of missing bills had come in.
The three looked at each other without a word, while Billings pretended to have resumed his writing.
When they were again in the landlord’s room the superintendent said:
“Proof is accumulating so fast against this Manning that I shall procure a warrant, send it on to our New York detective, and have him arrested.”
“Oh, uncle, don’t do it?” exclaimed Ben. “Remember that he is a gentleman, and that a thing of this kind would ruin him.”
“Your kind heart does you credit, Ben, but in a case of this sort mercy must give way to justice. Yes, it is clearly my duty to have him arrested. At the same time I shall write out a full account of the affair and send it to the president of the road, so that he will get it the first thing Monday morning. He can then decide what is to be done.”
The superintendent did as he proposed, and his letter was the first one President Walker Saxon, of the A. & B. Road, saw lying on his desk as he entered his office Monday morning. He had intended stopping at the office of the Phonograph, in which he was a stockholder, and speaking to the city editor about Myles Manning, but as it was early he changed his mind and decided that he would first go to his own office and glance over the mail.
At the same time a dispatch directed to Myles lay uncalled for in the city room of the Phonograph. It came from Billings, and was:
“Look sharp, old man. Suspect B. W. is making trouble for you here. Do not know yet what it is, but will post you as soon as I get on the inside track. Pretty sure I shall have to thrash him yet.”