CHAPTER III

ONE SHERIFF I KNEW

“Good afternoon, George!”

“How do you do? Upon my word, sheriff, but you’re the last man I expected to see in Stoneham to-day. How’s business in Fitchburg?” Such was my response to Sheriff Butterick, who, with a young man, very sprucely dressed, had called at my hotel. It was a delightful afternoon on the second day of June in 1865.

“Shake hands with Mr. Golden--Mr. Tim Golden!” said the sheriff, introducing his companion, and a warm hand-clasp followed. I told the sheriff that I was pleased to meet any friend of his in all seasons. I laughed loudly when Mr. Golden said:--

“I suppose you don’t know you’re under arrest, Mr. White?”

“Why, certainly I do,” was my answer, being perfectly willing to carry on the joke. “What’s the charge? Chicken-roost theft, bank robbery, or high-handed murder?”

I turned to Sheriff Butterick, and a laugh died on my lips. I’d caught a peculiar light in his eyes, and it sobered me up in a moment. I looked again at Mr. Golden. A silver shield of some sort was on his vest, and he was holding his coat back that I might read an inscription on it. “New York City Detective Bureau” was what I saw.

“I’m Tim Golden, one of the New York detective force,” said he. “I’m here with the sheriff to get you for that Walpole Savings-bank job.”

“Bank job?” I repeated, failing to catch his meaning.

“Yes, the Walpole bank burglary.”

I had begun to feel a little upset. The worst I could think of was, that by the barest possibility I had made a business mistake and that a lawsuit was confronting me. At the mention of a bank burglary I felt that little worriment vanish, and bursting into a laugh, I cried: “Come, come! you can’t persist in that joke, sheriff, for it won’t work. Try another, old fellow.”

Detective Golden’s next words frightened me, for I realized that he was in earnest.

“This is serious, Mr. White. You’re wanted in New Hampshire for that Walpole bank burglary, and there is no dodging it.”

“Burglary! Why, man, my business affairs occupy me from sixteen to twenty hours a day, and I’ve been at it every day.”

“Can’t help that,” said Golden.

“But I can.” I felt my anger rising rapidly.

“You had time enough to be much in the company of Mark Shinburn,” said the detective, looking at me, his eyes half closed. There was a harsh appearance about his face I failed to like when he did that.

“And who’s Shinburn?” I asked. “Never have I heard of such a name.”

“You were with him a lot last fall.”

“It’s a mistake--a big mistake!” I insisted angrily.

“But you have heard of Wyckoff?” insinuatingly inquired Detective Golden. I started. Any one else as innocent as I would have done the same. I had actually forgotten Wyckoff; yes, I had been with him last fall when he made the trip to Claremont and Concord.

“True, I have heard of Wyckoff, a deputy marshal who stopped at my hotel and hired my teams, and I did drive him from Keene to Claremont and to Concord,” said I. “But what of it? Is that bank burglary?”

“It seems to be of no use, Mr. White,” put in the sheriff, “for that Wyckoff you were trundling about the country is Mark Shinburn, now under arrest at Keene. I confess the whole thing is a puzzle to me, but Golden, here, says you’re mixed up in the case somehow, and you’ll have to come up to Keene with us.”

“But it is an outrage,” cried I, following up the outburst with an argument much too long for the occasion, for it profited me nothing. Not a word I could say would in any way straighten out the tangle. In short, I was under arrest. Detective Golden asked me if I would go with him to New Hampshire without extradition formalities.

“Of course I’ll go, if I must go at all; but, being innocent of this mess, I hate to be treated in such an ignominious manner. It is not the result I dread, for an innocent man can’t be proved guilty in this age. Yes, I’m ready to go with you now.”

And I went on to my fate--a fate I could not have foreseen. What a trip it was--one I never shall forget. We arrived at Keene, a lively though old-fashioned town, and the county-seat of Cheshire County, and I was, for the first time in my life, behind prison bars.

After all the years since that tremendous affliction, the like of which turns black hair to gray and the smooth brow into furrows, I can’t bring myself to a calm retrospection of the scenes in which I was powerless in the strong hands of my unscrupulous enemies. But in all the blackness that memory still brings up to me, I have one bright remembrance of the faithfulness of my relatives and close friends, who, thank God, believed me innocent then, and do to this day.

While awaiting the action of the law and consulting frequently with my lawyers, I had ample time to learn the inside story of the Walpole bank robbery, of which I had no knowledge, save what I heard from neighbors and the newspapers. I had no pecuniary interest in the bank; therefore, when the arrest came, I had forgotten that a crime of that sort had been committed. Many of its details were told me later, by Detective Golden, and such as he didn’t know were supplied me by others, among whom were my legal advisers.