CHAPTER XLIVTHE TRUTH COMES OUT.
By herculean efforts, the arrest of Jim Phillips was kept as a close secret. Bromlow, despite his conviction, which was honest enough, that Jim was guilty, dared not oppose Brady too far, and was willing enough that the matter should be kept quiet, moreover, for the sake of the bank itself. But one of the few persons who heard about the arrest was Barrows, who chuckled grimly. He expected that Dick Merriwell would also be involved, and he felt that he could already spend the extra five thousand dollars that Phelps had promised him.
“We’re not getting as much as we expected out of this,” he said to Bascom. “But we can go back for the rest later. And, in the meantime, Riggs is all right, still in the bank, and still able to serve us if we want him again. Merriwell and Phillips are in a hole they’ll never be able to crawl out of, and we’ve got ten thousand dollars.”
“Are you sure this money we’ve got is all right?” asked Bascom. “I understand, of course, that the bank hasn’t got the numbers of the real notes, but how about Merriwell himself? He may have the numbers?”
“Wouldn’t he have said so, to clear himself long before this?” asked Barrows. “The thing has worked out better than I thought was possible. That was why I took the chance of getting that money back to Riggs. Otherwise, I’d have let him go, and made a quick jump out of here after getting what I could for these notes. It’s a good thing our plan didn’t work out, really. We’re better off than we expected to be.”
Barrows, complacent and self-satisfied, enjoyed his triumph over Harding to the full. He strutted around the other gambler’s haunts, making a lavish display of his money, and spending it liberally. His old friends, who had shown signs of deserting him after the disaster that had overtaken him in New London, returned at once, and Harding felt himself discredited and ridiculous in the eyes of his friends. Barrows had turned the tables neatly.
Even some of the politicians who backed Harding were inclined to laugh at him.
“You seem to have raised a husky chap in this fellow Barrows,” said one of them. “Poor work, Bill. You saved him from going under a year ago—and now he’s making you look foolish. There’s nothing on him now.”
“If there is, let them do what they like to him,” growled Harding. “He’s too fresh. He thinks he’s the whole cheese now, just because he’s managed to get a stake. I bet there’s something crooked about the way he got it, too. Give the bulls the tip to soak him if they get a chance, will you?”
“Sure thing,” said the politician. “He’s nothing to me. But I guess he’s got his tracks pretty well covered.”
“He hasn’t got sense enough,” said Harding. “He was up against it hard after that break he made at New London, and he took any way he could to make a stake.”
Even had Barrows known of this conversation, it would not have worried him. Like Harding’s political friend, he thought that he was safe from pursuit. He spent his money as he liked, without a thought of the careless way in which he was changing hundred-dollar bills. And, less than thirty-six hours after he had reached New York with Bascom, he was offering one of his yellow bills in payment for a handful of cigars, when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and a detective, well known to him by sight, told him that he was under arrest.
“Quit your kidding!” said Barrows. “You can’t arrest me. You’ve got nothing on me.”
“I’ve got a warrant, issued on the request of the New Haven police,” said the detective, with a grin. “This is the time you’ve missed your guess, Barrows. The warrant charges the robbery of five thousand dollars from the Elm National Bank.”
Bascom escaped. But Barrows, despite his best efforts, was forced to believe that there was no chance for him. His political influence had disappeared—Harding had seen to that—and he found that it was useless to fight his removal to Connecticut, where a jail sentence was sure to be his portion. The New York police are excellent workers. When they are free from political influence, against which, in the old days, they were helpless, they are efficient and fearless. And in this case, the words of Bromlow, meant to apply to Jim Phillips, were the death knell of his hopes. Two thieves had fallen out, and it was time for honest men to reap the rewards of their honesty.
The proceedings in New Haven were simple and direct. Dick Merriwell had kept the numbers of all the bills that he had deposited in the New Haven bank, a simple precaution not always taken even by business men when they are handling large sums, but never neglected by him. And the evidence that he gave was ample to show that the money he had deposited was perfectly good. Suspicion, thus directed toward Riggs, showed the extent of the plot. It was soon made plain that Riggs had falsified the numbers of all the bills in the vaults of the bank, and it was plain that it had been the intention of Barrows and his fellow plotters to substitute counterfeit money for all of that huge sum. Thus detection of the theft, one of the greatest ever planned, would have been delayed long enough to put the stolen money into circulation all over the country, and it would have been impossible to trace any of it, since the bank had none of the numbers of the genuine bills.
Riggs, seeing the evidence piling up, confessed his original theft, and his share in the greater conspiracy, and thus the New Haven police secured evidence which resulted in the closing up of Marsten’s gambling place and his swift departure for parts unknown. The New Haven police had long hunted for evidence against him, but had never before been able to get any that was worth anything in court. Foote, too, appalled at the extent of the conspiracy thus revealed, confessed, and the notes signed by him and held by Marsten, which had been abandoned in his hasty flight, were destroyed.
In view of the valuable evidence he was able to give against Barrows, Riggs got only a suspended sentence for his own robbery, and Brady’s father, urged by his son and Dick Merriwell, saw that the teller received a place where he would be removed from temptation to steal. Barrows was sentenced to five years in prison, being convicted without difficulty, since the complete collapse of his plans left him friendless and powerless.
Jim Phillips was completely cleared when the watchman, after treatment in the hospital, was again called upon to identify him, his story being confirmed in every detail. The watchman told of Jim’s effort to release him, and of as much of the fight as he had seen, and even Bromlow was forced to admit that Jim’s baseball training had saved the bank.