Scattergood Baines Part 47

Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, the back of young Ovid Nixon, the a.s.sistant cashier.

His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers--and carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of _vest_ in Coldriver, and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's figure.

Ovid pa.s.sed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had regarded him with interest.

"Mornin', Ovid" he said.

"Morning, Mr. Baines."

"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?"

Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head.

"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?"

"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid.

"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured special fer you?"

"Best tailor there was," said Ovid.

"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie."

"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie."

Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he said, "to be able to afford sich clothes."

Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed.

"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked.

"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'."

"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked.

"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own."

Scattergood nodded.

"Still does sewin' for other folks?"

"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it pa.s.ses the time."

"Pa.s.ses consid'able of it, don't it? Pa.s.ses the time right up till she gits into bed?"

"Ma's industrious."

"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to Coldriver; credit to the bank."

Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.

"Been spendin' Sat.u.r.day nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around."

"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently.

"Girl?" said Scattergood--one might have noticed that it was hopefully.

"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Sat.u.r.day nights and kind of amuse ourselves Sundays."

"Um!... G'-by, Ovid."

"Good-by, Mr. Baines."

Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This denouement had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.

So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly trips down the line on the "three-o'clock."

Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver.

Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the bank after Ovid's graduation from high school--and had watched him, with some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a young man to hold. To be a.s.sistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.

Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line."

It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for symptoms of the complication.

Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a Sat.u.r.day afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of a spell of neuralgia, was distracted.

Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his thoughts by wriggling his toes.

"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with my wife--Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet."

"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?"

"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood.

He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable a.s.sets of the inst.i.tution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne--Scattergood made up the full committee.

"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its protest at the burden.

"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin'

suspicious?"

"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some acidity.

"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood.

"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it--not yit.

Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault an overhaulin'."

Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he had looted clumsily--and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose the vault for his peculiar task.