In the Hands of the Malays, and Other Stories Part 9

This was soon done.

"Now, Mr. Partridge, will you look at these initials closely; are they yours?"

After a long examination Mr. Partridge said, "They are very like mine."

"Well, let us compare them with the real ones," Mr. Fernlea said, producing a magnifying gla.s.s.

"I see a difference," Mr. Hertman said. "Do you see, in your own initials, you do not take your hand off the paper at all, while in these there is a little break; the W. J. are written together, but the writer has paused before making the P. The manner in which you form the letter P is rather a peculiar one, while the W. and J. are easy enough to imitate; and I expect that after having finished the first letters he looked at the copy before commencing the third. You see," he continued, "the upstroke from the J to the P is as nearly as possible continuous, but with the gla.s.s you can make out that sometimes the lines do not quite touch, and at others they overlap slightly."

The others at once perceived the point that he had indicated, and they now went through the whole book and without difficulty marked off the shares against which the false initials had been placed. It took them five hours' work, and it was just midnight when they concluded.

"We have got the list complete now," Mr. Fernlea said.

"And a very long one it is," Mr. Hertman said. "Seven hundred thousand dollars! why, it is more than the called-up capital of the bank. He never told the men who examined the books on the day after the affair was first known, what the real extent of the loss was, or they would never have signed that announcement rea.s.suring the public. However, there is a reserve to call up, and if things are put into good hands the bank may pull through yet. Now what is the next step that you propose, Mr. Fernlea?"

"I intend myself to go to New York to obtain the a.s.sistance of the police and to call upon the broker who has acted for Westerton--that is, for Johnstone. I shall tell him frankly we are tracing an extensive robbery, and that we have reasons to believe that large numbers of the foreign securities have pa.s.sed through his hands, sent to him from Chicago. I shall show him this list, and ask him if he has dealt in any of them. If he says yes, we shall then have nothing to do but to go to Chicago and obtain a warrant for the arrest of Westerton. We will not bring Johnstone into it. Then the next time he goes over, we will pounce upon him. I should like you to give me an authority to ask for you, as one of the princ.i.p.al shareholders of the bank."

"I will go with you myself," Mr. Hertman said. "I shall have to go there on business in a few days anyway, and can kill two birds with one stone." "I suppose you will take Mr. Partridge with you?"

"Certainly. I shall have to tell the whole story to the commissioner of police, and he will want what I say confirmed, both as to the theft and the numbers of the missing securities."

The mission to New York was attended with complete success. The broker, when called upon by Mr. Fernlea, Mr. Hertman, and the chief commissioner himself, had no hesitation in disclosing his dealings with Westerton. It was found that a large proportion of the securities noted had pa.s.sed through his hands.

"I have had my own suspicions that something was not quite right with that gentleman lately. Two months ago he made a very lucky hit in corn.

Up to that time he had been unfortunate; and, as you see, all those securities have been sold by him through me to meet his losses. Since then he has been buying. But what struck me as singular was that he insisted upon getting back the very securities he had parted with. He had a special reason, he said, for wanting these particular shares and no others. It gave me a lot of trouble, because the buyers had often parted with them, and sometimes they had gone through two or three hands, and I had to offer something over the market price to get them again. However, with the exception of sixty thousand dollars' worth, I have got them all, or rather, he has got them, and I am in treaty for most of those he still wants. He said in his letter that it was a crotchet of his, and I put it down that he was either a crank or a thief, and yet, even in the latter case, I could not see any reason for his wanting to get into his hands securities which he had once parted with."

"I can only suppose," Mr. Fernlea said, "that he was afraid that at the meeting of the shareholders they would insist upon a committee being appointed to investigate the whole affair, and the list of the missing securities would then be published, in which case they would, of course, be traced back to him--at least to Westerton."

"Then his name is not Westerton?"

"It is not," the chief commissioner said. "But I don't think we will mention just at present what his real name is, though you are likely to know it before long. Now," he went on, when they had left the broker's office, "our course is clear enough. I will send one of my men with you gentlemen to Chicago, with instructions to the local police to aid him in the arrest of one Westerton on the charge of stealing a large number of valuable securities, the property of the Brownsville Bank. And I think I can congratulate you and the other shareholders of the bank on what you have just heard. I fancy it likely that in that safe will be found the whole of the missing property, with the exception of the small number not yet bought up, and even these will probably be recovered, for of course the broker has already received money to buy them with."

Five days later Roland Partridge, looking out from his window at his lodgings in Chicago, saw six men stop before the house. He went quietly downstairs and opened the door, and said, "That is the room."

The door opened and the party entered.

"Westerton, _alias_ Johnstone, I arrest you on the charge of stealing securities, the property of the Brownsville Bank."

There was an exclamation, a slight struggle, and then Mr. Johnstone stood handcuffed among his captors. The safe stood open. Mr. Fernlea and Mr. Hertman stepped forward and glanced at its contents.

"It is as we expected," the former said. "I cannot say how many are missing, but these are the securities stolen from the bank."

"I have been recovering them," Mr. Johnstone said hoa.r.s.ely. "I have been purchasing them so as to save the shareholders the loss. Another week and I should have got them all. I received a batch to-day, and there are only fifteen thousand dollars' worth missing."

"That may be true enough," Mr. Hertman said, "but we know that you stole them all in the first place--that you yourself stole them, and put the blame on your unfortunate cashier."

The excitement in Brownsville on the absconding of the cashier of the bank was as nothing to that caused when the local paper came out with the following telegram from its correspondent at Chicago:--

"A most important arrest was effected here this evening in the person of a man known as Johnstone, _alias_ Westerton. This man has for months occupied a lodging in Hale Street in this city. He only used it one night a week, and was supposed by Mrs. James, the landlady--a person of the highest respectability--to be a commercial traveller. This evening he was arrested by an officer who came down especially from New York, aided by our own active and intelligent police authorities, on the charge of stealing a great number of valuable securities, the property of the Brownsville Bank, which inst.i.tution was, as our readers may remember, threatened with a run, towards the conclusion of last year, by the discovery of a robbery, which was at that time supposed to have been effected by Mr. William Partridge, the cashier of the bank.

"The extraordinary part of the business is, that the man Westerton turns out to be the president of the bank, Mr. James Johnstone, who has. .h.i.therto borne the highest of characters, being considered quite the leading citizen of Brownsville. The whole circ.u.mstances are most romantic, and I shall be able to telegraph further details for your next edition. I am enabled to state that this startling discovery has been brought to light chiefly by the efforts of Mr. Roland Partridge, son of Mr. William Partridge, hitherto suspected of the theft. Mr. Partridge has been a.s.sisted by those well-known citizens of Brownsville, Mr.

Fernlea and Mr. Robert Hertman. These gentlemen are, with the two Mr.

Partridges, at present in Chicago, and will, I understand, leave by the first train in the morning for Brownsville. The prisoner will also be taken over in course of the day in charge of the police, and will be charged before the justices of your city with his offence. I am informed that the greater portion of the securities stolen have been recovered by the police, so that the bank is not likely to be the loser of more than a few thousand dollars by this crime."

Brownsville could at first scarcely believe the news, but enquiries elicited the fact that Mr. Johnstone was absent, and that the police had, late the previous evening, on the receipt of a telegram from Chicago, gone to his house and placed seals upon the drawers and cabinets. The machines of the _Brownsville Gazette_ were insufficient to cope with the demands for papers of the second edition, which gave full details of the affair, and were bought up even more eagerly than the first.

There was quite a crowd at the station to meet the first train from Chicago, and a number of gentlemen who had previously known Mr.

Partridge, pressed forward to shake hands with him and to congratulate him as he alighted from the train with his two friends. Roland did not accompany him, having left the train two stations back to fetch his mother, to whom the glad news had been telegraphed on the previous night. Mr. Partridge could not himself go, as his presence would be necessary at the court. There was no feeling of pity for Mr. Johnstone.

Later on he received sentence of five years' penal servitude--a sentence that would have been heavier had not the court believed his statement that he had intended to return the stolen securities to the bank. But the effect of this was in public opinion neutralized by his conduct in throwing the blame on to Mr. Partridge, and in allowing him to suffer for his guilt.

Mr. Partridge was forced to overcome his objection to public gatherings so far as to receive a banquet and presentation from his fellow-townsmen, and was unanimously elected by the shareholders of the Brownsville Bank president of that inst.i.tution. Mr. Johnstone's family left the town immediately after his arrest, and Percy Johnstone is at present a clerk in a store in Broadway. Roland Partridge is still in Mr.

Fernlea's office, and will shortly, it is said, be admitted as a partner in the business. About which time, it is also rumoured, he will enter into another partnership with a young lady who was his staunchest defender in his dark days.

A FRONTIER GIRL

A TALE OF THE BACKWOOD SETTLEMENTS

A girl of fifteen, slim and lithe in figure--although it would scarcely have suggested itself to a casual observer, so disfigured was it by the thick, homespun garment in which she was clothed--stood looking out from the door of a log cabin over the lake which lay a hundred yards away.

Her face would have been almost childish had it not been for a certain alertness of expression and keenness of glance which would never have been seen in the face of a town-bred girl, nor in one brought up in a country where the only danger ever to be encountered was in crossing a meadow in which a bull was grazing. Mary Mitford was the only child of the settler who owned the cabin. He had at one time been a well-to-do farmer, but he had fallen into difficulties and been obliged to give up his farm and travel farther west, where land could be had for the taking up.

The times had been peaceful, and although the spot he had fixed upon was ten miles from the nearest village, that did not deter him from settling there. It was a natural clearing of some twenty acres in extent. The land was fertile, and sloped gradually down to the lake. A clear spring rose close to the spot where he had determined to make his house, and as to Indian troubles he shrugged his shoulders and said: "If the Indians break out I shall only have to shut up my cabin and move into the village; but as there is no house nearer than that, no tracks in the forest leading past my place, and nothing worth stealing, it is hardly likely that the red-skins will come my way. They are more likely to attack the village than they are to visit my shanty."

He had now lived on his little farm for four years, and had had no reason to regret his choice. The cabin originally built had been enlarged. He had a horse to do his ploughing, and some ten acres under tillage; a score of half-wild pigs roamed by day in the forest, picking up their living there, and returning of their own accord to their sties in the evening for their one regular meal. Five or six cows and a score of sheep grazed on the untilled ground; geese and ducks waddled down to the lake at daybreak and returned at nightfall; two or three dozen chickens found plenty of grubs and worms to eat between the rows of corn and vegetables on the tilled ground. Altogether John Mitford was doing well. He went down once a week with ducks, geese, fowls, and vegetables to the village, using a large boat, on which he had built a sort of cabin where he often pa.s.sed the night on the lake, returning home to breakfast with a goodly store of wild duck he had shot, and sometimes a stag which he had overtaken as it swam across the lake.

So well had he done, indeed, that he had settled to take on three or four hired men to extend the clearing by cutting down and grubbing up the forest. He had been ably a.s.sisted by his wife, who not only looked after the house, but a.s.sisted on the farm at busy times; while Mary, who was but nine years old when they came there, made herself as useful as she could at light work, fed the animals, cooked when her mother was in the fields, and as she grew older spent a good deal of her time in a small birch-bark canoe her father had bought for her in the village. She added a good deal to the family store by fishing; not only was the house well supplied, but she enabled her father to take a large basketful down when he went to the village, where the people were all too busy to fish for themselves.

She also learned to use her father's rifle with a skill equal to his own, and could hit any duck that came within range of the weapon. From time to time there were rumours of trouble with the Indians; but these either proved to be without foundation, or the troubles took place at distant spots on the border. Sometimes Mary's mother accompanied her father to the village when stores had to be laid in, and materials for garments purchased for which their own homespun cloth was unsuitable.

They had started together this morning, and the three men who had been engaged were to return with them. These were to be accommodated in an outhouse until they had built a log cabin for themselves, and a store of groceries, saws and axes, blankets, and other necessaries for their use were also to be purchased and brought up.

They had, when the settler had gone down on the previous week, heard that councils had been held among the village elders as to the rumoured Indian troubles, and as to the best method of defending the place should the enemy threaten an attack. John Mitford had received many warnings, but he paid little attention to them, and while speaking lightly of them to his wife, remarked with a laugh, that with the hired men they would have quite a garrison.

"They will all bring their guns up with them," he said, "and it will scarcely be worth the while of any Indians to attack us when they know that we should be able to make a stout fight, and that even if they took the place there would be nothing to pay them except our scalps for the loss of life they would suffer. The men I hired to-day are all accustomed to border work, and claim to be good shots. I can say as much for myself, and Mary here is a good bit better than I am, and you have learned to make very fair practice, wife."

"I have not had time for much of it, John, but at least I think that I could scarcely miss an Indian at fifty yards; however, as you say, we have been hearing these rumours every three or four months since we settled here, and nothing has ever come of it."

So little did they think of the matter that when they started in the scow an hour before daybreak no allusion was made to it, and Mary was to have supper ready for them on their return.

"Remember that there will be six, Mary, and you will have to provide plentifully for the men. It would never do to give them a bad impression on their arrival. We shall be back before nightfall."

When they had gone, Mary went about her usual work--let the pigs out, and saw them well on their way towards the forest, the ducks started down to the lake and the chickens to the fields, while the geese began to graze in the meadow between the house and the lake, where the horse and other animals joined them as soon as they were let out. Having attended to these matters, she went about the work of the house. From time to time she came to the door to see that all was going on well. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when she heard a sudden squeal of alarm in the forest, and a minute or two later the pigs came galloping out of it. Accustomed as Mary was to all the noises of the place, the sudden outcry startled her.

"What can have frightened the pigs?" she said to herself; "it may be that a mountain lion has sprang down upon one of them, but it may be that there are Indians."

She went back at once into the house, pulled out the moss from the loopholes that had been made when it was built in case they should ever be attacked, and, going from one to another, gazed into the forest.