Geoffrey Hamstead Part 34

In a minute Geoffrey, with his hands in his pockets, strolled to the side door.

"Good-by, Jack," he said hastily. "When your schooner sails past the foot of Bay Street here, just get up on the counter and wave your handkerchief so that I may see the last of you."

"All right, dear old man. I'll not forget to take my last look at the old Vic, and to do as you say. I must run now, and leave the two thousand in your bed, and then get on board. Good-by. G.o.d bless you!"

Geoffrey sauntered back to his stall and took a drain at a flask of brandy to keep off the chill he felt for a moment, and to brace himself up generally.

Jack hurried off to the chambers, counted out the two thousand dollars which he had wished to get rid of, and after taking a last look at the old rooms, he hurried to the Yacht Club. Here he put the valises into his own skiff after changing his good clothes for the old sailing clothes already described. Then, under an old soft-felt hat with holes in the top, he rowed down to the schooner, threw his valises on board, and climbed over the side. He let his skiff go adrift. He had no further use for it. There were some stone-hookers at the neighboring dock. He called to the men on one of them and said, "There's a boat for you!"

Then he dropped down the forecastle ladder with his luggage.

His arrival on board was none too early, for the covers were off the sails and the tug was coming alongside to drag the vessel away from the wharf, and start her on her way with the east wind blowing to take her out of the bay. The tug was towing her toward the west channel as they pa.s.sed the different streets in front of the city. At Bay Street, Jack left off helping to make canvas for a minute, and, running to the counter, sprang up on the bulwarks and waved his handkerchief to somebody who, he knew, was watching through the windows of the Victoria Bank.

There was nothing to detain the schooner now. The wind was from the east, and consequently dead ahead for the trip, but it was a good fresh working breeze, and Geoffrey, when he saw how things looked on the schooner, knew that it had fairly started on its pa.s.sage to Oswego.

He glanced around him to make a.s.surance doubly sure, and then he divided the pile of forty-eight (formerly fifty) one-thousand-dollar bills into four thin packages. These he slipped hurriedly into the four long pockets which he had made in the waistcoat the previous night. He then b.u.t.toned up the waistcoat, and from the even distribution of the bills upon his person it was impossible to see any indication of their presence.

When this was done and he had surveyed himself carefully, he took another pull at the flask on general principles and proceeded to take further steps. He might as well have left the liquor alone, because his nerve, once he commenced operations, was like iron.

He banged about some drawers, as if he were looking for something, and then called out:

"Jack?"

No answer.

"Jack?"

Still no answer.

The ledger-keeper from A to M, who occupied the stall beyond Jack's, then growled out:

"What's the matter with you?"

"Where's Jack?"

"I don't know. He asked me to look after his ledger for a moment, and then went out. He has been out for over an hour, and if the beggar thinks I'm going to be skipping round to look up his confounded ledger all day he's mistaken. I'll give him a piece of my mind when he comes in."

"A to M" went on growling and sputtering, like a leaky shower-bath.

"That's all very well," said Geoffrey; "but you fellows are playing a trick on me, and I don't scare worth a cent."

Everybody could hear this conversation. Geoffrey then stepped on a stool and leaned over the part.i.tion, smiling, and seized the hard-working receiving-teller by the hair.

"Come, you beggar, I tell you I don't scare. Just hand over the money.

Really, it's a very poor kind of a joke."

"What's a poor kind of a joke? Seizing me by the hair?"

Geoffrey looked at him smilingly, as if he did not believe him and still thought there had been a plan to abstract the money and frighten him.

"Well, I don't care much personally; but that packet of fifty thousand is gone, and if any fellow is playing the fool he had better bring it back."

Several of the clerks now came round to his wicket. This sort of talk sounds very unpleasant in a bank.

"Where did you leave the bills?" they asked.

"Right here," said Geoffrey, laying his hand on a little desk close beside the wicket, opening into the box in which Jack had worked.

"Well, you had better report the thing at once," said several, who were looking on with long faces.

"I shall, right straight," said Geoffrey energetically. His face bore an admirable expression of consternation, checked by the _sang froid_ of an innocent bank-clerk. He strode off into the manager's room.

"Excuse me for interrupting you, sir. I thought it was a hoax at first, but it looks very much as if fifty thousand dollars had been taken from my box."

"What, stolen!"

"Looks like it--very. If you would kindly step this way, sir, I will explain what I know about it."

Geoffrey then showed the manager where the bills had been laid, and did not profess to be able to tell anything more.

"Mr. Northcote, ring up the chief of police, and tell me when he is there," said the manager. "Where is Mr. Cresswell?"

No answer.

"Does anybody know where Mr. Cresswell is?"

Ledger-keeper from A to M then said that Mr. Cresswell went out over an hour ago, and had asked him to look after his ledger for five minutes.

Mr. Cresswell had not returned.

The manager walked into Jack's box and looked around him. Everything was lying about as if he had just stopped working, and this, to the manager's mind, seemed to give the thing a black look. It seemed as if Jack, if he had made off with the money, had left things in this way as a blind.

The telephone was ready now, and the manager requested the chief of police to send a couple of his best detectives at once. Only one was available at first. This man, Detective Dearborn, appeared in five minutes, and was made acquainted with all the known circ.u.mstances. When this was done, fully two hours had elapsed since Jack's departure, and still he had not turned up.

Detective Dearborn was a man with large, usually mild, brown eyes. There was nothing in the upper part of his face to be remarked except general immobility of countenance. The lower part of his face, however, was suggestive. His lower jaw protruded beyond the upper. Whether this means anything in the human being may be doubted, but one involuntarily got the idea that if this man once "took hold," nothing short of red-hot irons would burn him off.

He took a careful, mild survey of the premises, listened to everything that was said, remarked that the package could not have been taken from the public pa.s.sageway if left in the place indicated, looked over Jack's abandoned stall, asked a few questions from the manager, and, like a sensible man, came to the conclusion that Jack had taken the money.

He walked into the manager's room and asked him several questions about Jack's habits and his usual pursuits. Geoffrey was called in to a.s.sist at this. Yes, he could take the detective to Jack's room. Jack had no habits that cost much money. "Had he been speculating at all?" Geoffrey thought not, although some time ago Mr. Cresswell had said that he was "in a little spec.," and hoped to make something. Did not know what the "spec." was.

"May I ask," said Dearborn, "when you last spoke to Mr. Cresswell?"

"We spoke to each other for a minute just before he went out. He asked me if I was going to the Dusenalls' 's.h.i.+ne' to-night. I said I was. Then he spoke about several young ladies of our acquaintance, and other things which had no reference to this matter."

"Was the lost money in the place you say at that time?"

"Yes. I remember having my hand on the packet while I spoke to him."

"May I ask if you at any time during the morning left your stall?"