Tales of Fantasy and Fact by Brander Matthews (i love reading .TXT) 📗

"Haven't I?" returned Mr. Wheatcroft. "I've found the man! That's all!"

"You, too?" ejaculated Paul.

"Who is he?" asked the senior partner.

"Wait a minute," Mr. Wheatcroft begged. "Don't be in a hurry and I'll tell you. Yesterday afternoon, I don't know what possessed me, but I felt drawn down-town for some reason. I wanted to see if anything was going on down here. I knew we had made that bid Saturday, and I wondered if anybody would try to get it on Sunday. So I came down about four o'clock, and I saw a man sneak out of the front door of this office. I followed him as swiftly as I could and as quietly, for I didn't want to give the alarm until I knew more. The man did not see me as he turned to go up the steps of the elevated railroad station. At the corner I saw his face."

"Did you recognize him?" asked Mr. Whittier.

"Yes," was the answer. "And he did not see me. There were tears rolling down his cheeks, perhaps that's the reason. This morning I called him in here, and he has finally confessed the whole thing."

"Who—who is it?" asked Mr. Whittier, dreading to look at the old book-keeper, who had been in the employ of the firm for thirty years and more.

"It is Major Van Zandt!" Mr. Wheatcroft declared.

There was a moment of silence; then the voice of Paul Whittier was heard, saying, "I think there is some mistake!"

"A mistake!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "What kind of a mistake?"

"A mistake as to the guilty man," responded Paul.

"Do you mean that the Major isn't guilty?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft.

"That's what I mean," Paul returned.

"But he has confessed," Mr. Wheatcroft retorted.

"I can't help that," was the response. "He isn't the man who opened that safe yesterday afternoon at half-past three and took out the letter-book."

The old book-keeper looked at the young man in frightened amazement.

"I have confessed it," he said, piteously—"I have confessed it."

"I know you have, Major," Paul declared, not unkindly. "And I don't know why you have, for you were not the man."

"And if the man who confesses is not the man who did it, who is?" asked Wheatcroft, sarcastically.

"I don't know who is, although I have my suspicions," said Paul; "but I have his photograph—taken in the act!"

V

When Paul Whittier said he had a photograph of the mysterious enemy of the Ramapo Steel and Iron Works in the very act of opening the safe, Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheatcroft looked at each other in amazement. Major Van Zandt stared at the young man with fear and shame struggling together in his face.

Without waiting to enjoy his triumph, Paul put his hand in his pocket and took out two squares of bluish paper.

"There," he said, as he handed one to his father, "there is a blue print of the man taken in this office at ten minutes past three yesterday afternoon, just as he was about to open the safe in the corner. You see he is kneeling with his hand on the lock, but apparently just then something alarmed him and he cast a hasty glance over his shoulder. At that second the photograph was taken, and so we have a full-face portrait of the man."

Mr. Whittier had looked at the photograph, and he now passed it to the impatient hand of the junior partner.

"You see, Mr. Wheatcroft," Paul continued, "that although the face in the photograph bears a certain family likeness to Major Van Zandt's, all the same that is not a portrait of the Major. The man who was here yesterday was a young man, a man young enough to be the Major's son!"

The old book-keeper looked at the speaker.

"Mr. Paul," he began, "you won't be hard on the——" then he paused abruptly.

"I confess I don't understand this at all!" declared Mr. Wheatcroft, irascibly.

"I am afraid that I do understand it," Mr. Whittier said, with a glance of compassion at the Major.

"There," Paul continued, handing his father a second azure square, "there is a photograph taken here ten minutes after the first, at 3.20 yesterday afternoon. That shows the safe open and the young man standing before it with the private letter-book in his hand. As his head is bent over the pages of the book, the view of the face is not so good. But there can be no doubt that it is the same man. You see that, don't you, Mr. Wheatcroft?"

"I see that, of course," returned Mr. Wheatcroft, forcibly. "What I don't see is why the Major here should confess if he isn't guilty!"

"I think I know the reason for that," said Mr. Whittier, gently.

"There haven't been two men at our books, have there?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft—"the Major, and also the fellow who has been photographed?"

Mr. Whittier looked at the book-keeper for a moment.

"Major," he said, with compassion in his voice, "you won't tell me that it was you who sold our secrets to our rivals? And you might confess it again and again, I should never believe it. I know you better. I have known you too long to believe any charge against your honesty, even if you bring it yourself. The real culprit, the man who is photographed here, is your son, isn't he? There is no use in your trying to conceal the truth now, and there is no need to attempt it, because we shall be lenient with him for your sake, Major."

There was a moment's silence, broken by Wheatcroft suddenly saying:

"The Major's son? Why, he's dead, isn't he? He was shot in a brawl after a spree somewhere out West two or three years ago—at least, that's what I understood at the time."

"It is what I wanted everybody to understand at the time," said the book-keeper, breaking silence at last. "But it wasn't so. The boy was shot, but he wasn't killed. I hoped that it would be a warning to him, and he would make a fresh start. Friends of mine got him a place in Mexico, but luck was against him—so he wrote me—and he lost that. Then an old comrade of mine gave him another chance out in Denver, and for a while he kept straight and did his work well. Then he broke down once more and he was discharged. For six months I did not know what had become of him. I've found out since that he was a tramp for weeks, and that he walked most of the way from Colorado to New York. This fall he turned up in the city, ragged, worn out, sick. I wanted to order him away, but I couldn't. I took him back and got him decent clothes and took him to look for a place, for I knew that hard work was the only thing that would keep him out of mischief. He did not find a place, perhaps he did not look for one. But all at once I discovered that he had money. He would not tell me how he got it. I knew he could not have come by it honestly, and so I watched him. I spied after him, and at last I found that he was selling you to the Tuxedo Company."

"But how could he open the safe?" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "You didn't know the new combination."

"I did not tell him the combination I did know," said the old book-keeper, with pathetic dignity. "And I didn't have to tell him. He can open almost any safe without knowing the combination. How he does it, I don't know; it is his gift. He listens to the wheels as they turn, and he sets first one and then the other; and in ten minutes the safe is open."

"How could he get into the store?" Mr. Whittier inquired.

"He knew I had a key," responded the old book-keeper, "and he stole it from me. He used to watch on Sunday afternoons till Mike went for a walk, and then he unlocked the store, and slipped in and opened the safe. Two weeks ago Mike came back unexpectedly, and he had just time to get out of one of the rear windows of this office."

"Yes," Paul remarked, as the Major paused, "Mike told me that he found a window unfastened."

"I heard you asking about it," Major Van Zandt explained, "and I knew that if you were suspicious he was sure to be caught sooner or later. So I begged him not to try to injure you again. I offered him money to go away. But he refused my money; he said he could get it for himself now, and I might keep mine until he needed it. He gave me the slip yesterday afternoon. When I found he was gone I came here straight. The front door was unlocked; I walked in and found him just closing the safe here. I talked to him, and he refused to listen to me. I tried to get him to give up his idea, and he struck me. Then I left him, and I went out, seeing no one as I hurried home. That's when Mr. Wheatcroft followed me, I suppose. The boy never came back all night. I haven't seen him since; I don't know where he is, but he is my son, after all—my only son! And when Mr. Wheatcroft accused me, I confessed at last, thinking you might be easier on me than you would be on the boy."

"My poor friend," said Mr. Whittier, sympathetically, holding out his hand, which the Major clasped gratefully for a moment.

"Now that we know who was selling us to the Tuxedo people, we can protect ourselves hereafter," declared Mr. Wheatcroft. "And in spite of your trying to humbug me into believing you guilty, Major, I'm willing to let your son off easy."

"I think I can get him a place where he will be out of temptation, because he will be kept hard at work always," said Paul.

The old book-keeper looked up as though about to thank the young man, but there seemed to be a lump in his throat which prevented him from speaking.

Suddenly Mr. Wheatcroft began, explosively, "That's all very well! but what I still don't understand is how Paul got those photographs!"

Mr. Whittier looked at his son and smiled. "That is a little mysterious, Paul," he said, "and I confess I'd like to know how you did it."

"Were you concealed here yourself?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft.

"No," Paul answered. "If you will look round this room you will see that there isn't a dark corner in which anybody could tuck himself."

"Then where was the photographer hidden?" Mr. Wheatcroft inquired, with increasing curiosity.

"In the clock," responded Paul.

"In the clock?" echoed Mr. Wheatcroft, greatly amazed. "Why, there isn't room in the case of that clock for a thin midget, let alone a man!"

Paul enjoyed puzzling his father's partner. "I didn't say I had a man there or a midget either," he explained. "I said that the photographer was in the clock—and I might have said that the clock itself was the photographer."

Mr. Wheatcroft threw up his hands in disgust. "Well," he cried, "if you want to go on mystifying us in this absurd way, go on as long as you like! But your father and I are entitled to some consideration, I think."

"I'm not mystifying you at all; the clock took the pictures automatically. I'll show you how," Paul returned, getting up from his chair and going to the corner of the office.

Taking a key from his pocket he opened the case of the clock and revealed a small photographic apparatus inside, with the tube of the objective opposite the round glass panel in the door of the case. At the bottom of the case was a small electrical battery, and on a small shelf over this was an electro-magnet.

"I begin to see how you did it," Mr. Whittier remarked. "I am not an expert in photography, Paul,