"How long do you suppose?" asked Nina.
"I don't really know. It depends on the vessel. I suppose a smart yacht could do it in a pretty short time. That Toronto yacht, the Ideal, I suppose, could—"
"Oh, you know the Ideal?"
"No. She was pointed out to me once. They say she's a rare one to go, and no mistake. That young fellow, Treadwell, that sails her—they say he is one of the finest yachtsmen in Canada."
"Oh," said Nina, laughing and blushing. It was funny to hear this quiet stranger praising Jack. She felt proud of his small glory.
"Yes," said Dearborn, rubbing his forehead, as if trying to recollect. "That's his name—Treadwell. However, it does not matter."
"Not at all," said Nina. She was somewhat more on her guard now against strangers since her experience with the Rev. Matthew Simpson. But evidently this man did not even know Jack's name, and did not want to know it for any reason.
Dearborn was hanging "off and on," as sailors say, thinking that if she knew anything about this Cresswell she would perhaps give him a lead. Not getting any lead, he muttered half aloud, by way of coming back to the point:
"Treadwell—Treadwell—no—that's not the name." Then aloud. "It's provoking when one can not remember a name, madame."
He then fell to muttering other similar sounding names, and Nina could not refrain from smiling at his stupid, mild way of bothering himself about what was clearly no use to him.
"Ah! I have it! What a relief it is to succeed in a little thing like that! Cresswell. That's the name!"
The air of triumph on the mild-eyed man was amusing, and Nina laughed softly to herself.
He turned from gazing over the water and saw her laughing. Then he smiled, too, as if he wished to join in, if there was anything to laugh at.
"You are amused, madame. Perhaps you know this gentleman quite well—and are laughing at my stupidity?"
"I ought to," said Nina, unable to resist the temptation to paralyze this well-behaved person of the middle classes. "I am his wife." And she laughed heartily at her little joke.
If ever a man did get a surprise it was detective Dearborn. For a bare instant, it threw him off his guard. He saw too much all at once. Here was the woman who perhaps had all the $50,000 on her person. He tried to show polite surprise and pleasure at the intelligence; but it was too late. For an instant he had looked keen. Comparatively, Nina was brighter nowadays. Danger and deception had sharpened her faculties. She was thoughtless enough, certainly, to mention who she was; but she did not see any reason why she should not. She might as well call herself Mrs. Cresswell now as when she got to Oswego, where she would have to do so. Mr. Dearborn had gone almost as far in self-betrayal. He longed for a warrant to arrest her, and get the money from her, but he said in his subdued, abstracted sort of way:
"How strange that is! No wonder you laugh! However, I said nothing against him—quite the contrary—and that is always a comfort when we feel we have been putting our foot in it. I was wondering, Mrs. Cresswell, who you were. It seemed to me I had seen you on the street in Toronto."
He spoke very politely. No one could take any exception to this tone. Even when he made the following remark it did not seem very much more than the ordinary growth of a chance conversation among travelers. He added:
"Let me see—a? Your maiden name was—a?" He raised his eyebrows with would-be polite inquiry; but it did not work. He had looked keen for the tenth part of a second, and now he might as well go in and rest himself for the remainder of the night.
Nina drooped her eyelids coldly.
"I do not know that that is a matter of any consequence."
She gave a little movement, as if she drew herself to herself, and she leisurely returned the glasses to their case.
Mr. Dearborn saw he had got hiscongé, and he wanted to kill himself. He felt rather awkward, and could not think of the right thing to say. The writer of Happy Thoughts has not provided mankind with the best reply to a snub that comes "straight from the shoulder." Even a Chesterfield may be unequal to the occasion.
"I hope you will not think me inquisitive?" he said lamely.
"Not at all," said Nina quickly. She slightly inclined her head, without looking at him, as she moved away to her chair—not wishing to appear too abrupt.
She sat there wondering who this man was, and thinking she had been foolish to say anything about herself. The evening came on chill, windy, and foggy, and she grew strangely lonely. She had got the idea that this man was watching her. It made her very nervous and wretched. She longed for some strong friend to be with her—some one on whom she could rely. Everything had conspired to depress her in the past few weeks. She had now left her home and a kind father—never to return. She was out in the world, with no one to look to but Jack. This would be a long night for her, she thought. She was too nervous to go to sleep. She felt so tired of all the unrest of her life. What would she not give to have all her former chances back before her again! How she longed for the mental peace she had known until lately. Oh, the fool she had been! the wickedness of it all! How she had been forced from one thing to another by the consequences of her fault! She was terribly wretched, poor girl, as the evening wore on. She went to her cabin and undressed for bed. She said her prayers kneeling on the damp carpet. She prayed for Jack's safety and for her own, and for the man who assisted her to all her misery. Still her despair and forlornness weighed upon her more and more. The sense of being entirely alone, without any protection from a nameless fear, which the idea of being watched all day by an unknown man greatly increased; the terrible doubt about everything in the future—all this culminated in an absolute terror. She lay in bed and tried to pray again, and then an idea she acquired when a child came to her, that prayers were unavailing unless said while kneeling on the hard floor. In all her terror, the conviction of wickedness almost made her faint, and to make things worse, she got those awful words into her head, "the wages of sin is death," and she could not get them out. Yielding to the idea that her prayers would be better if said kneeling, she climbed out panic-stricken to the cold floor, which chilled her to the bone, and terrified by the words ringing in her head she almost shrieked aloud:
"O God, take those words away from me! O God, thou knowest I have suffered! O God, I am terrified! I am alone. O God, protect me! Forgive me all things, for I do repent."
Here she felt that if she prayed any more she would be hysterical and beyond her own control. She crept back into bed; but all she could think of until she dropped to sleep, exhausted, was, "The wages of sin is death—The wages of sin—isDeath."
Brutus:O that a man might knowThe end of this day's business ere it come!But it sufficeth that the day will end,And then the end is known.Julius Cæsar.
Brutus:O that a man might knowThe end of this day's business ere it come!But it sufficeth that the day will end,And then the end is known.
Julius Cæsar.
When Jack got on board the North Star he found that, although he had shipped as working passenger, the wily mate had taken him as one of the crew, with the intention, doubtless, of pocketing the wages which otherwise would have gone to the sailor who would have been employed. Several of the sailors were rather intoxicated, and the rest were just getting over a spree. They came down into the forecastle just before leaving, and seeing Jack there, whom they did not know, were very silent. One of them at last said:
"Is every man here a Union man?"
Jack knew he was not, and that, being ignorant of secret signs, he would perhaps be found out. He answered, "I don't belong to the Union."
The man who spoke first then, said sulkily: "That settles it; I'm going ashore. The rules says that no member shall sail on a vessel if there is any scab on board."
Jack understood from this, after a moment's thought, that this expression must refer to one who did not avail himself of the healthy privileges of the Sailors' Union.
He explained that he was only going as a passenger, and was not under pay.
This seemed to make the matter satisfactory, and after the malcontent quieted down they all got to work peacefully. It took them a long time to get all the canvas set while the tug towed the vessel out of and beyond the harbor.
Jack found he was no match for these men in the toil of making heavy canvas. He felt like a child among them. The halyards were so large and coarse to the touch, and after being exposed to the weather, their fiber was like fine wire and ate into his hands painfully, although the latter were well enough seasoned for yachting work. His hands almost refused to hold the ropes when they had got thoroughly scalded in the work, and by the time all the canvas was set he was ready to drop on the deck with exhaustion.
He was on the mate's watch. This man saw that, although Jack was physically inferior, his knowledge seemed all right. This puzzled the sailors. He was dressed in clothes which had looked rough and plebeian on the Ideal, but here he was far too well dressed. If there were tears in his clothes and in his hat, there were no patches anywhere, and this seemed to be,prima facie, a suspicious circumstance. He regretted that his clothes were not down to the standard. After being reviled on the yachts because they were so disreputable, he now felt that they were so particularly aristocratic that he longed for the garments of a tramp. He saw that if the sailors suspected that he was not one of themselves by profession they would send him to Coventry for the rest of the trip. This would be unpleasant, for as the men got sober they proved good-humored fellows in their way, although full of cranks and queer ideas.
At eight bells, on the first night, Jack came on deck in a long ulster, which, although used for duck-shooting and sailing for five years since it last saw King Street, was still painfully whole. The vessel was lying over pretty well and thrashing through the waves in creditable style. The watch just going off duty had "put it up" with the mate that Jack should be sent aloft to stow the fore-gafftopsail.
They could not make Jack out. And when he went up the weather-rigging, after slipping out of the ulster, every man on board except the captain was covertly watching him—wondering how he would get through the task. The topsail had been "clewed up" at the masthead—and was banging about in the strong wind like a suspended Chinese lantern.
Suppose a person were to tie together the four corners of a new drawing-room carpet, and were then to hoist it in this shape to the top of a tall pine tree bending in the wind to an angle of thirty degrees. Let him now climb up, and with a single long line master the banging mass by winding the line tightly around it from the top down to the bottom, and afterward secure the long bundle to the side of the tree. If this be done, by way of experiment, while the seeker after knowledge holds himself on as best he can by his legs, and performs the operation on a black night entirely by the sense of touch he will understand part of what our lake sailors have to do.
Jack, to say truly, had all he wanted. The sail was a new one. The canvas and the bolt-ropes were so stiff as to almost defy his strength. But he got it done and descended, tired enough. All hands were satisfied that he knew a good deal, and yet they said they were sure he was "not quite the clean wheat." The ulster had been very damaging.
The evening of the second day saw them still working down the lake, and having had some favorable slants of wind they had got well on their way. As Jack's watch went below at midnight, a fog had settled over the sea, and he was glad to get down out of the cold, and have a comfortable smoke before turning into his old camping blankets for the rest of his four hours off.
By the light of a bad-smelling tin lamp nailed against the Samson-post, and sitting on a locker beside one of the swinging anchor chains that came down through the hawse pipe from the deck above into the fore-peak under the man's feet, one of the sailors fell to telling one of his many adventures on the lakes. There was no attempt at humor in this story. It was a simple, artless tale of deadly peril, cold, exhaustion, and privation on our inland sea. It was told with a terrible earnestness, born of a realization of the awful anxiety that had stamped upon his perfect memory every little detail that occurred.
This was an experience when, in the month of December, the schooner he was then sailing on had been sent on a last trip from Oswego to Toronto. They had almost got around the Lighthouse Point at Toronto, after a desperately cold passage, when a gale struck them, and, not being able to carry enough canvas to weather the point, they were thus driven down the lake again with the sails either blown from the bolt-ropes or split to ribbons, with the exception of a bit of the foresail, with which they ran before the wind. To go to South Bay would probably mean being frozen in all winter, and perhaps the loss of the ship, so the captain headed for Oswego, hoping the snow and sleet would clear off to enable them to see the harbor when they got there. On the way down a huge sea came over the stern, stove in the cabin, and smashed the compasses.
"We hedn't kept no dead reckonin', an' we cudn't tell anyways how fast we wus goin'. We just druv' on afore it for hours. Cudn't see more'n a vessel's length anywheres for snow, and, as for ice, we wus makin' ice on top of her like you'd think we wus a-loadin' ice from a elevator; we wus just one of 'Greenland's icy mountings' gone adrift. Waal, the old man guv it up at last, and acknowledged the corn right up and up. Says he, 'Boys, she's a goner. We've druv' down below and past Oswego, and that's the last of her.'"
"This looked pretty bad—fur the old man to collapse all up like this; fur all on yer knows as well as I do that to get down below Oswego in a westerly gale in December means that naathin' is goin' to survive but the insurance. There's no harbors, ner shelter, ner lifeboats, ner naathin'. Yer anchors are no more use to yer off that shore than a busted postage-stamp. Thet's the time, boys, fur to jine the Salvation Army and trample down Satan under yer feet and run her fur the shore and pray to God for a soft spot and lots of power fer to drive her well up into a farm.
"Waal, gents, the old man tuckered out, and went off to his cabin fur to make it all solid with his 'eavenly parents, and two or three of us chaps as hed been watchin' things pretty close come to the conclusion thet we hedn't got below Oswego yet. So we all went in a body, as a kind o' depitation from ourselves, and says us to the old man: 'Hev you guv up the nevigation of this vessel? becus, ef yer hev, there's others here as wud like to take a whack at playin' captain.'
"'All right,' says the old man from his knees (fur he was down gettin' the prayers ready-made out of a book), 'I've guv her up,' says he; 'do you jibe your fores'l and head her fur the sutherd and look out for a soft spot. Yer kin do what yer likes with her.'
"So we jibes the fores'l then, just puttin' the wheel over and lettin' the wind do the rest of it, fer there was six inches of ice on to the sheets, and yer couldn't touch a line anywheres unless yer got in to it with a axe. Waal, the old fores'l flickers across without carryin' away naathin', and, just as we did this, another vessel heaves right across the course we bed been a-driven' on. Our helm was over and the ship was a-swingin' when we sighted her, or else we'd have cut her in two like a bloomin' cowcumber. And then we seed our chance. That ere vessel was goin' along, on the full kioodle, with every appearance of knowin' where she was goin' to—which we didn't. 'Hooray!' says we, 'we ain't below Oswego yet, and that vessel will show us the road. She's got the due course from somewheres, and she's our only chance.'
"And we follered her. You can bet your Sunday pants we was everlastin'ly right on her track. She was all we hed, boys, 'tween us and th' etarnal never-endin' psalm. Death seemed like a awful cold passage that time, boys! We wus all frost-bit and froze up ginerally; and clothes weren't no better'n paper onto us."
"But she had aleetlemore fores'l onto her than we hed; and after a while she begun to draw away from us. We hed naathin' left more to set fer to catch up with her. We hollered to make her ease up, but she paid no attention. Guess she didn't hear, or thought we hed our compasses all right—which we hedn't. Waal, gents, it was a awful time. Our last chance was disappearin' in the snow-storm, and there wus us left there, 'most froze to death, and not knowin' where to go. Yer cudn't see her, thro' the snow, more'n two lengths ahead; and, when she got past that, all yer cud see was the track of her keel in the water right under our bows. Well, fellows, I got down furrud on the chains, and we 'stablished a line o' signals from me along the rest of them to the man at the wheel. If I once lost that tract in the water we wus done forever. Sometimes I wus afeared I hed lost it, and then I got it again, and then it seemed to grow weaker; and I thought a little pray to God would do no harm. And I lifts up my hand—so—"
The man had left his seat and was crouching on the floor as he told this part of the story. The words rolled out with a terrific energy as he glared down at the floor, stooping in the attitude in which he had watched the track in the water. The tones of his voice had a wild terror in them that thrilled Jack to the very core, and made him feel as if he could not breathe.
"And I lifts up me hand—so (and, gents, I wus lookin' at that streak in the water. I want yer to understand I was a-lookin' at it). And I lifts up me hand—so—and I says 'Holy Christ, don't let that vessel get off no farderer—'"
The story was never finished.
A sound came to them that seemed to Jack to be only a continuation of the horror of the story he had heard. A crash sounded through the ship and they were all knocked off their seats into the fore-peak with a sudden shock. They tumbled up on deck in a flash, and there they saw that a great steamer had mounted partly on top of the schooner's counter. The mainmast had gone over the side to leeward.
The schooner had been about to cross the steamer's course when they first saw her lights in the fog, and, partly mistaking her direction, the sailing captain had put his ship about. This brought the stern of the schooner, as she swung in stays, directly in line with the course of the steamer. The steamer's helm was put hard over, and the engines were reversed, but not until within fifty feet of the schooner. The stern of the schooner swung around as she turned to go off on the other tack, so that, although the stem or cutwater of the steamer got past, the counter of the schooner was struck and forced through the steamer's starboard bow under the false sides. When they struck, the schooner's stern was depressed in the seaway and the steamer's bow was high in the air, so that the latter received a deadly blow which tore a hole about six feet high by ten long in her bow. Both boats went ahead together, chiefly owing to the momentum of the huge steamer. And for a moment the steamer's false sides rested on what was left of the schooner's counter on the port side.
A man leaning over from the upper deck of the steamer cried:
"What schooner is that?"
"Schooner North Star, of Toronto," was the reply.
The man vaulted over the bulwarks and slid actively down the sloping side of the steamer to the deck of the schooner and looked around him. No sooner had he done so than the motion of the waves parted the two boats. The steamer ceased to move ahead. The forward canvas of the schooner had caught the wind and she was beginning to pay off on the port tack, the mainmast, mainsail, and rigging dragging in the water.
Jack, who was filled with helpless anxiety, then discovered that the steamer was the Eleusinian. At the same moment he heard a shriek from the bow of the steamer and there he saw Nina, her long hair driving behind her, beckoning him to come to help her. The steamer, filling like a broken bottle, had already taken one lurch preparatory to going down and Jack yelled:
"Jump, Nina! Jump into the water and I will save you!"
But Nina, not knowing that the steamer was going down, had not the courage to cast herself into the black heaving waves.
Jack saw this hesitation, and yelled to her again to jump. He made fast the end of a coil of light line, and then sprang to the bulwarks to jump overboard so that when he swam to the bows of the steamer Nina could jump into the water near him.
He knew without looking that the schooner, with no after-canvas set, could do nothing at present but fall off and drift away before the wind, as she was now doing, and as her one yawl boat had been smashed to dust in the collision, the only chance for Nina was for him to have a line in his hand whereby to regain the schooner as it drifted off. It was a wild moment for Jack, but his nerve was equal to the occasion. While he belayed the end of the light line to a ring on the bulwarks, he called to his mates on the schooner to let go everything and douse their forward canvas.
It takes a long time even to read what had to be done. What Jack did was done in a moment; but as he sprang to the bulwarks to vault over the side, a strong pair of arms seized him from behind and held him like a vice with his arms at his sides.
"Let me go," he cried, as he struggled in the grasp of a stranger.
"No, sir. You're wanted. I have had trouble enough to get you without letting you drown yourself."
Jack struggled wildly; but the more frantic he became the more he roused the detective to ferocity. He heaved forward to throw Dearborn over his head; but the two fell together, crashing their heads upon the deck, where they writhed convulsively.
The iron grip never relaxed. At last Jack, lifting Dearborn with him, got on his feet and, seizing something on the bulwarks to hold himself in position, he stopped his efforts to escape. "For God's sake," he cried brokenly, "for Christ's sake, let me go! See, there she is! She is going to be my wife!"
In his excitement Dearborn forgot that the woman on the steamer might have the stolen money with her. To him Jack's jumping overboard promised certain death and the loss of a prisoner.
As Jack tried to point to Nina, who was clasping the little flag-pole at the bow of the steamer—a white figure in the surrounding gloom, waving and apparently calling to him—he saw the steamer take a slow, sickening lurch forward, and then a long lurch aft. The bows rose high in the air, with that poor desolate figure clasping the flag-pole, and then the Eleusinian slowly disappeared.
For an instant the bows remained above the surface while the air escaped from the interior, and the last that could be seen was the white figure clinging desperately to the little mast as if forsaken by all. No power had answered her agonies of prayer for deliverance.
After the strong man who had pinioned Jack saw the vessel go down, he became aware that he was holding his culprit up rather than down. He looked around at his face, and there saw a pair of staring eyes that discerned nothing. He laid him on the deck then, and finally placed him in the after-cabin on the floor. Jack did not regain consciousness. His breathing returned only to allow a delirium to supervene. Dearborn and a sailor had again to hold him, or he would have plunged over the bulwarks, thinking the steamer had not yet sunk.
The captain's wife, who had been sleeping in the extra berth off the after-cabin, had been crushed between the timbers when the collision took place, and under the frantic orders of the captain the rest of the crew were trying to extricate the screaming woman. The mate had been disabled in the falling of the mainmast, so that no attempts were made to save those who were left swimming when the Eleusinian went down, and the schooner, under her forward canvas, sailed off, dragging her wreckage after her, slowly, of course, but faster than any one could swim. Thus no one was saved from the steamer except the detective, who had not thought of saving his own life when he had dropped to the deck of the schooner, but only of seizing Jack.
The mate was able, after a time, to give his directions while lying on the deck. The wreckage was chopped away, and the vessel was brought nearer the wind to raise the injured port quarter well above the waves until canvas could be nailed over the gaping aperture. When this was done they squared away before the wind, hoisted the center-board, and made good time up the lake. They had a fair wind to Port Dalhousie—the only place available for dockyards and refitting—where they arrived at two o'clock in the day.
After raving in delirium until they arrived at Port Dalhousie, Jack fell off then into a sleep, and when the Empress of India was ready to leave at four o'clock for Toronto, Dearborn woke him up and found that his consciousness seemed to have partly returned. The detective was pleased that the disabled vessel had sought a Canadian port, where his warrant for Jack's arrest was good. However, the prisoner made no resistance, and at nine o'clock he was duly locked up at Toronto, having remained in a sort of stupor from which nothing could arouse him.
The time is out of joint;—O cursed spite.That I was ever born to set it right.Hamlet.
The time is out of joint;—O cursed spite.That I was ever born to set it right.
Hamlet.
As the afternoon wore on, on that day when the bank lost its $50,000, Geoffrey Hampstead was back at his work as usual. He did not change his waistcoat while at his rooms, because he thought this might be remarked. He merely left the money there, and went back to his work as if nothing had happened. The excitement among the clerks in the bank was feverish. Geoffrey let them know what he and Dearborn had seen in Jack's room, and that the confusion there clearly showed that he had gone off somewhere. Most faces looked black at this, but there were several who, in spite of the worst appearances, refused to believe in Jack's guilt. Geoffrey was one of them. Geoffrey was quite broken down. Everybody felt sorry for him. He had made a great friend of Jack, and every one could see that the blow had almost prostrated him.
Toward the end of the afternoon he said to a couple of his friends: "I wish you fellows would dine with me to-night. I feel as if I had to have somebody with me."
These two did so. In the evening they picked up some more of the bank men, and all repaired to Geoffrey's quarters. They saw he was drinking heavily, and perhaps out of fellow-feeling for a man who had had a blow, they also drank a good deal themselves, and lapsed into hilarity, partly in order to draw Geoffrey out of his gloom.
At one o'clock the night was still young so far as they were concerned, and the liquor in the rooms had run short. Geoffrey did not wish to be left alone. The noise and foolishness of his friends diverted his thoughts from more unpleasant subjects. When the wine ran out, he said they must have some more. They said it would be impossible to get it; but Geoffrey said Patsey Priest could procure it, and he rang on Mrs. Priest's bell until Patsey appeared, looking like a disheveled monkey. He was received with an ovation. Geoffrey gave him the money, and sent him to a neighboring large hotel to get a case of champagne. When he returned, having accomplished his errand, the young gentlemen were enthusiastic over him. He was made to stand on a table and take an affidavit on an album that he had brought the right change back. Then some jackass said a collection must be taken up for Patsey, and he headed the list with a dollar. Of course, everybody else gave a dollar also, because this was such a fine idea. Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote was delighted with Patsey. "Mr. Priest," he said, "you are a gentleman and a man of finish; but it grieves me to notice that your garments, although compatible with genius, do not, of themselves, suggest that luxury which genius should command. Wait here for a moment; you must be clad in costly raiment."
Mr. St. G. Le M. H. Northcote darted unsteadily, not to say lurched, into Geoffrey's room, looking for that "very dreadful waistcoat" which he had been pained to see Geoffrey wearing during the day. He found it at once in a closet, and, wrapping it in among several trousers and coats which he had selected at random, he came out again with the bundle in his hand.
"What are you doing there with my clothes?" asked Geoffrey, rising good-humoredly, but inwardly nervous, and going toward the bedroom as Northcote came out.
"I am going to give them to a gentleman whose station in life is not properly typified in his garb."
Geoffrey did not see the waistcoat lying inside one of the coats in the bundle, and so he thought it better to humor the idea than run any chances. He had taken off this objectionable article before going to dinner, intending to come back and burn it when he had more time.
He took the bundle from Northcote and handed it to Patsey as he dragged that individual to the door. "Here," he said. "Don't come down in rags to my room again. Now, get out."
Patsey disappeared hurriedly through the door. He had his own opinion of these young men who were so ready to pay for the pleasure of knocking him about, and if he had been required to classify mammalia he would not have applied the old name ofhomo sapiensto any species to which they belonged.
The next day, to kill time during the anxious hours, Geoffrey went out yachting with Dusenall and several others. As the wind fell off, they did not reach the moorings again until late in the evening, when they dined at the club-house on the island, and slept on the Ideal instead of going home. After an early breakfast the next morning they were rowed across the bay, and Geoffrey reached the bank at the usual time.
In this way, having been away from town all night, he knew nothing of the news that had spread like wildfire through certain circles on the previous night, that Jack Cresswell had been arrested and brought to Toronto. The first person whom he met at the door of the bank was the omnipresent Detective Dearborn, who smiled and asked him what he thought of the news.
"What news?" asked Geoffrey, his eyes growing small.
"Why, this," he replied, handing Geoffrey one of the morning papers, which he had not yet seen. Geoffrey read the following, printed in very large type, on the first page:
Detective Dearborn, on his arrival in Toronto, was so certain of convicting his prisoner that he threw the hungry newspaper reporters some choice and temptingmorceaux. And, from the little that he gave them, they built up such an interesting and imaginative article that one was forced to think of the scientific society described by Bret Harte, when Mr. Brown—
Reconstructed there.From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare.
Reconstructed there.From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare.
Indeed, from the glowing colors in which the detective's chase was painted, from the many allusions to Jack's high standing in society and his terrible downfall, from a full description of Jack as being the petted darling of all the unwise virgins of the upper ten, and from the way that the name of Jack was familiarly bandied about, one necessarily ended the article with a disbelief in any form of respectability, especially in the upper classes, and with a profound conviction that society generally was rotten to the core. The name "Jack" seemed now to have a criminal sound about it, and reminded the reader of "Thimble-rig Jack" and "Jack Sheppard," and other notorieties who have done much to show that people called "Jack" should be regarded with suspicion.
Mr. Dearborn watched Geoffrey's face as he glanced over the newspaper. Dearborn had a sort of an idea from all he could learn, that Jack had had a longer head than his own to back him up, and, for reasons which need not be mentioned now, he suspected that there was more than one in this business.
However, Geoffrey knew that he was being watched, and his nerve was still equal to the occasion. He turned white, as a matter of course—so did everybody in the bank—and Dearborn got no points from his face.
Geoffrey handed him back the paper, and said commiseratingly: "Poor Jack, he has dished himself, sure enough, this time."
Dearborn served him then with a subpœna to attend the hearing before the police magistrate at an hour which was then striking, and Geoffrey walked over to the police court with him.
Standing-room in the court that day was difficult to get. In the morning well-wornhabituésof that interesting place easily sold the width of their bodies on the floor for fifty cents.
Maurice Rankin had rushed off to see Jack in the morning. He knew nothing about the evidence, but he felt that Jack was innocent. He found his friend apparently in a sort of stupor, and was hardly recognized by him.
"You must have the best lawyer I can get to defend you, Jack," he said.
No answer.
"Don't you intend to make any defense or have any assistance? I can get you a splendid man in two minutes."
Jack shook his head slowly, and said, with an evident effort:
"No. I don't care."
Rankin did not know what to make of him; but, finally, he said:
"Well, if you won't have any person better, I will sit there, and if I see my way to anything I'll perhaps say a word. You do not object to my doing this, do you?" Jack's answer, or rather the motion of his head, might have meant anything, but Rankin took it to mean assent.
At half-past nine, Jack was led from the cell outside to the court-room by two policemen who seemed partly to support him.
A thrill ran through his old friends when they saw him. His face was ghastly, and his jaw had dropped in an enervated way that gave him the appearance of a man who had been fairly cornered and had "thrown up the sponge" in despair. He had not been brushed or combed for two nights and a day. He still wore his old, dirty sailing clothes. The sailor's sheath-knife attached to his leather belt had been removed by the police. His partial stupor was construed to be dogged sullenness, and it assisted in giving every one a thoroughly bad impression as to his innocence.
After he was placed in the dock he sat down and absently picked at some blisters on his hands, until the magistrate spoke to him, and then the policemen ordered him to stand up. When he stood thus, partly raised above the spectators, his eyes were lusterless and stolid and he looked vacantly in the direction of the magistrate.
"John Cresswell, it is charged against you that you did, on the 25th day of August last, at the city of Toronto, in the county of York, feloniously steal, take, and carry away fifty thousand dollars, the property of the Victoria Bank of Canada," etc.
Rankin saw that Jack did not comprehend what was going on. He got up, and was going to say something when the magistrate continued:
"Do you wish that the charge against you shall be tried by me or with a jury at the next assizes, or by some other court of competent jurisdiction?"
No answer.
The magistrate looked at Jack keenly. It struck him that the prisoner had been imbibing and was not yet sober, and so he spoke louder, and in a more explanatory and informal tone.
"You may be tried, if you like, on some other day, before the county judge without a jury, or you may wait till the coming assizes and be tried with a jury, or, if you consent to it, you may be tried here, now, before me. Which do you wish to do?"
Still no answer.
Rankin considered. He knew nothing of the evidence, and thought it impossible for Jack to be guilty. He did not wish to relinquish any chances his friend might have with a jury, and he felt that Jack himself ought to answer if he could. He went to him and said simply, for it was so difficult to make him understand:
"Do you want to be tried now or afterward?"
Jack nodded his head, while he seemed to be trying to collect himself.
"You mean to be tried now?"
Jack looked a little brighter here, and said weakly:
"Certainly—why not?"
Detective Dearborn, had not been idle since his return; and all the witnesses that the prosecution required were present.
His first witness was Geoffrey Hampstead. His evidence was looked upon by the spectators as uninteresting, and merely for the sake of form. Everybody knew what he had to say. He merely explained how the packet of fifty bills belonging to the Victoria Bank had been put in a certain place on the desk in his box at the bank, and that, he said, was all he knew about it.
At this point, Jack leaned over the bar and said; with a stupid pleasure in his face:
"Morry, there's old Geoffrey. I can see him. What's he talking about? Say, if you get a chance, tell him I am awfully glad to see him again."
Rankin now became convinced that there was something the matter with Jack's head, and he resolved to speak to the court to obtain a postponement of the case when the present witness had given his evidence.
It was also drawn from Geoffrey, by the county attorney, that the prisoner alone had had access to the place where the money lay, that it could not have been reached from the public hall-way, and that the prisoner had gone out very soon after he had spoken to the witness—when the money lay within his reach.
The crown prosecutor said he would ask the witness nothing more at present, but would require him again.
Rankin then represented to the police magistrate that his client was too ill to give him any instructions in the matter. The defendant was a personal friend of his, and although willing to act for him, he was, as yet, completely in the dark as to any of the facts, and in view of this he deemed it only proper to request that the whole matter should be postponed until he should be properly able to judge for himself.
The magistrate then asked, with something of a twinkle in his eye.
"What do you think is the matter with your client, Mr. Rankin?"
"It is hard for me, not being a doctor, to say," answered Rankin, looking back thoughtfully toward Jack. "I think, however, that he is suffering from some affection of the brain."
A horse-laugh was heard from some one among the "unwashed," and the police strained their heads to see who made the noise. The old plea of insanity seemed to be coming up once again, and one man in the crowd was certainly amused.
The magistrate said: "I do not think there is any reason why I should not go on hearing the evidence, now. I will note your objection, Mr. Rankin, and I perceive that you may be in a rather awkward position, perhaps, if you are in total ignorance of the facts."
Rankin was in a quandary. If he sat down and declined to cross-examine the witnesses or act for the defendant in any way, Jack might be convicted, and all chances for technical loopholes of escape might be lost forever. There might, however, in this case, if the trial were forced on, be a ground for some after proceedings on the claim that he did not get fair play. On the other hand, cross-examination might possibly break up the prosecution, if the evidence was weak or unsatisfactory. He came to the conclusion that he would go on and examine the witness and try to have it understood that he did so under protest.
After partly explaining to the magistrate what he wished to do, he asked Geoffrey a few questions—not seeing his way at all clearly, but just for the general purpose of fishing until he elicited something that he might use.
"You say that after the defendant spoke to you in the bank you heard him go out through the side door. Where does that side door lead?"
"It leads into an empty hall, and then you go out of an outer side door into the street."
"Is not this outer side door sometimes left open in hot weather?"
"Yes, I think it was open all that day."
"How are the partitions between the stalls or boxes of the different clerks in the Victoria Bank constructed?"
"They are made rather high (about five feet six high) and they are built of wood—black walnut, I think."
"Then, if the door of your box was closed you could not see who came in or out of Mr. Cresswell's stall?"
"Only through the wicket between our boxes."
"How long after Mr. Cresswell went out did you notice that the money was gone?"
"I can't quite remember. I was going on with my work with my back to the money. It might have been from an hour to an hour and a half. I went out to the side door myself for an instant, to see what the weather was going to be in the afternoon. It was some time after I came back that I found that the money was gone."
"Then, as far as you are able to tell, somebody might have come into Mr. Cresswell's stall after he went out, and taken the money without your knowing it?"
"Certainly. There was perhaps an hour and a half in which this could have been done."
"This package of money, as it lay, could have been seen from the public hall-way of the bank through your front wicket, could it not?"
"Yes."
"And it was perfectly possible for a person, after seeing the money in this way, to go around and come in the side door, enter Mr. Cresswell's box and take the money?"
"Yes, I have heard of as daring robberies as that."
"Or it would have been easy for any of the other bank officials to have taken the money?"
"If they had wished to do so—yes."
"And it would have been possible for you, when you went to the side door, to have handed the money to some one there ready to receive it?"
"Oh, yes," said Geoffrey, laughing; "I might have had a confederate outside. I could have given a confederate about two hundred thousand dollars that morning, I think."
"Thank you," said Rankin to Geoffrey, as he sat down.
Geoffrey saw what Rankin wanted, and he assisted him as far as he could to open up any other possibilities to account for the disappearance of the money.
The cabman who removed Jack's valises early in the morning was then called. He identified Jack as the person who had engaged him. Had been often engaged before by Mr. Cresswell. He also identified Jack's valises, which were produced.
Rankin did not cross-examine this man. His evidence was brought in to show that Jack's absconding was a carefully planned one—partly put into action before the stealing of the money—and not the result of any hasty impulse.
The caretaker of the yacht-club house was also called, for the same object. He told what he knew, and was restrained with difficulty from continually saying that he did not see anything suspicious about what he saw. The caretaker was evidently partial to the prisoner.
Detective Dearborn then took the stand, and as he proceeded in his story the interest grew intense. But when he mentioned meeting a young lady on the steamboat, and getting into a conversation with her, Rankin arose and said he had no doubt there were few ladies who could resist his friend Detective Dearborn, but that he did not see what she had to do with the case.
Then the county attorney jumped to his feet and contended that this evidence was admissible to show that this woman was going to the same place as the prisoner and had conspired with the prisoner to rob the bank.
Rankin replied that there was no charge against the prisoner for conspiracy, that the woman was not mentioned in the charge, and unless it were shown that she was in some way connected with the prisoner in the larceny evidence as to her conversations could not be received if not spoken in the prisoner's presence.
Rankin had no idea who this woman was or what she had said. He only choked off everything he could on general principles.
The magistrate refused to receive as evidence the conversation between her and the detective. So Rankin made his point, not knowing how valuable it was to his client.
Detective Dearborn was much chagrined at this. He thought that his story, as an interesting narrative of detective life, was quite spoiled by the omission, and he blurted out as a sort of "aside" to the spectators:
"Well, any way, she said she was Cresswell's wife."
This remark created a sensation in court, as he anticipated. But the magistrate rebuked him very sharply for it, saying: "I would have you remember that the evidence of very zealous police officers is always sufficiently open to suspicion. Showing more zeal than the law allows to obtain a conviction does not improve your condition as a witness."
Although merited, this was a sore snub for the able detective, and it seemed quite to take the heart out of him; but he afterward recovered himself as he fell to describing what had occurred in the collision and how he had got on board the North Star—the sole survivor from the Eleusinian. In speaking of the arrest he did not say that he had prevented Jack from saving the life dearest on earth to him. He gave the truth a very unpleasant turn against the prisoner by saying that Jack struggled violently to escape from the arrest and tried to throw himself overboard. This, of course, gave all the impression that he was ready to seek death rather than be captured. It gave a desperate aspect to his conduct, and accorded well with his sullen appearance in the court-room. Dearborn suppressed the fact that Jack had been delirious and raving for twelve hours afterward, as this might explain his present condition and cause delay. He had lost no opportunity of circulating the suggestion that he was shamming insanity.
After he had briefly described his return to Toronto with his prisoner, the crown attorney asked him:
"Did you find any articles upon his person?"
"Yes; I took this knife away from him."
"Ah, indeed!" said the crown attorney, taking the knife and examining it. "Quite a murderous-looking weapon."
"Which will be found strapped to the back of every sailor that breathes," interrupted Rankin indignantly. "I hope my learned friend won't arrest his barber for using razors in his daily work."
"And what else did you find upon him?" asked the attorney, returning to the case for want of good retort.
Detective Dearborn thought a sensation agreeable to himself would certainly be made by his answer:
"Well," he said, with thesang froidwith which detectives delight to make their best points, "I found on him two of the stolen one-thousand-dollar bills—"
"Now, now, now!" cried Rankin, jumping to his feet in an instant. "You can not possibly know that of your own knowledge. You are getting too zealous again, Mr. Dearborn."
"Don't alarm yourself, my acute friend," said the crown attorney, conscious that all the evidence he required was coming on afterward. "We will prove the identity of the recovered bills to your most complete satisfaction." Then, turning to the witness, he said: "Go on."
Dearborn, who had made the little stir he expected went on to explain what the other moneys were that he had found on Jack, and described how he found the bills pinned securely inside a watch-pocket of a waistcoat that he wore underneath his outer shirt.
Rankin asked Dearborn only one question. There did not seem to be any use in resisting the matter except on the one point which remained to be proved.
"You do not pretend to identify these bills yourself?"
"No, sir, I don't. But we'll fix that all right for you," he said, triumphantly, as he descended from the box.
The clerk in the Montreal Telegraph Company's office who compared the numbers of the bills with the list of numbers sent from New York, then identified the two recovered bills beyond any doubt. He also swore that he personally deposited the package of bills with the receiving teller of the Victoria Bank.
The receiving teller swore to having received such a package and having handed it to Mr. Hampstead to be used in his department.
Geoffrey Hampstead was recalled, and acknowledged receiving such a package from the other clerk. But what surprised everybody was that he took up the recovered bills and swore positively that the stolen bills were of a light-brown color, and not dark-green, like the ones found on the prisoner.
Geoffrey had seen that the whole case depended on the identification of these bills. If he could break the evidence of the other witnesses sufficiently on this point, there might, he thought, be a chance of having Jack liberated.
A peculiar thing happened here, which startled the dense mass of people looking on.
The prisoner arose to his feet, and, taking hold of the railing to steady himself, said in a rolling, hollow voice, while Geoffrey was swearing that the stolen bills were of a light-brown color:
"Geoffrey, old man, don't tell any lies on my account. The bills were all dark-green." Then he sat down again wearily.
If there was a man in the room who until now had still hoped that Jack was innocent, his last clinging hope was dissipated by this speech.
A deep silence prevailed for an instant, as the conviction of his guilt sank into every heart.
Some said it was just like Geoffrey to go up and try to swear his friend off. They thought it was like him, inasmuch as it was a daring stroke which was aimed at the root of the whole prosecution. Probably he lost few friends among those who thought he had perjured himself for this object. Those who did not think this, supposed he was mistaken in his recollection as to the color of the bills. A small special edition of a vulgar newspaper, issued an hour afterward, said:
"In this case of Reginavs.Cresswell, if Hampstead had been able to shake the identification of these bills no doubt Regina would have 'got left.'"
When Jack had returned to consciousness, at Port Dalhousie, it was only partially. He looked at the detective dreamily when informed that he had to go to Toronto. He felt desperately ill and weak, and thought of one thing only—Nina's death. Even that he only realized faintly. Mentally and bodily he was like a water-logged wreck that could be towed about from place to place but was capable in itself of doing little more than barely floating. When Rankin had spoken to him, before the trial, about getting a lawyer, he was merely conscious of a slight annoyance that disturbed the one weak current of his thought. When the magistrate had addressed him in the court-room, the change from the dark cell to the light room and the crowd of faces had nearly banished again the few rays of intelligence which he possessed. He did not know what the magistrate was saying. Vaguely conscious that there was some charge against him, he was paralyzed by a death-like weakness which prevented his caring in the slightest degree what happened. When Rankin spoke incisively to him, the voice was familiar, and he was able to make an answer, and in the course of the trial gleams of intelligence came to him. The vibrations of Geoffrey's well-known voice aroused him with a half-thrill of pleasure, and during the re-examination he had partly comprehended that there was some charge against him about these bills, and he came to the conclusion that as Geoffrey must have known the true color of the bills, he was only telling an untruth for the purpose of getting him off. This was as far as his intelligence climbed, and when he sat down again the exertion proved too much for him, and his mind wandered.
Of course, after this terribly damaging remark, there was nothing left for Rankin to cling to. Clearly, Jack knew all about the bills, and had given up all hope of acquittal. The two other clerks were called to contradict Geoffrey as to the color of the bills, and with that the case for the prosecution closed.
Rankin said he was as yet unprepared with any evidence for the defense. Evidence of previous good character could certainly be obtained in any quantity from any person who had ever known the prisoner, and, in any case, he should be allowed time to produce this evidence. He easily showed a number of reasons why a postponement for a week should be granted.
The magistrate shook his head, and then told John Cresswell to stand up.
Jack was partly hoisted up by a policeman. He stood holding on to the bar in front of him with his head down, perhaps the most guilty looking individual that had been in that dock for a month.
"John Cresswell, the evidence against you in this case leaves no shadow of doubt in my mind that you are guilty of the offense charged. Your counsel has requested a delay in order that your defense may be more thoroughly gone into. I have watched your demeanor throughout the trial, and, although a little doubtful at first, I have come to the conclusion that you are shamming insanity. I saw you on several occasions look perfectly intelligent, and your remarks show that you fully understand the bearing of the case. I will therefore refuse to postpone the trial further than three o'clock this afternoon. This will give your counsel an opportunity to produce evidence of previous good character or any other evidence that he may wish to bring forward. Forty-eight thousand dollars of the stolen money are still missing, and, so far, I certainly presume that you know where that large sum of money is secreted. Unless the aspect of the case be changed by further evidence sentence will be passed on you this afternoon, and I wish to tell you now that if, in the mean time, you make restitution of the money, such action on your part may materially affect the sentence I shall pass upon you."
The magistrate was going on to say: "I will adjourn the court now until three o'clock," when he perceived that Jack, who was still standing, was speaking to him and looking at him vacantly. What Jack said while his head swayed about drunkenly was this:
"If you'll let me off this watch now I'll do double time to-morrow, governor. I never was sea-sick before, but I must turn in for a while, for I can't stand without holding on to something."
Nobody knew what to make of this except Detective Dearborn, who had possessed all along the clew to his distressing condition. But what did the detective care for his condition? John Cresswell was black with guilt. The fact of his being "cut up" because, a woman got drowned did not change his guilt. He and that deuced fine woman were partners in this business, and forty-eight thousand had gone to the bottom of the lake in her pocket The detective could not forgive himself for not allowing Jack to try and save the girl. The girl herself was no object, but it would have fetched things out beautifully as a culmination of detective work to bring her back also—along with the money. Forty-eight and two would make fifty, and if the bank could not afford to give away one in consideration of getting back the forty-nine—Bah! he knew his mad thirst to hold his prey had made him a fool.
Was it the formation of his jaw? They say a bull-dog is not the best fighter, because he will not let go his first grip in order to take a better one.
The court-room was empty in five minutes after the adjournment, and a couple of the "Vics" followed Jack down-stairs. Rankin went down also and was going to get Jack some stimulant, but he found the bank fellows ahead of him. One of them had got a pint of "fizz," another had procured from the neighboring restaurant some oysters and a small flask of brandy.
These young men were beautiful in the matter of stand-up collars, their linen was chaste, and extensive, and-their clothes ornamental, but they could stick to a friend. The language of these young men, who showed such a laxity in moral tone as to attempt to refresh an undoubted criminal, was ordinarily almost too correct, but now they were profane. Every one of them had been fond of Jack, and their sympathy was greater than their self-control. For once they forgot to be respectable, and were cursing to keep themselves from showing too much feeling—a phase not uncommon.
Rankin saw Jack take some brandy and that afterward he was able to peck at the oysters. Then he walked off to No. 173 Tremaine Buildings to think out what had best be done and to have a solitary piece of bread and butter, and perhaps a cup of tea, if Mrs. Priest's stove happened to have a fire in it.