Chapter 8

And with that parting shot Paul went on his way to his own desk, leaving the office-boy greatly puzzled.

Later in the day Bob and Mike exchanged confidences, and neither was ready with an explanation.

"At school," Bob declared, "we used to think teacher had eyes in the back of her head. She was everlastingly catchin' me when I did things behind her back. But Mr. Paul beats that, for he see me doin' things when he wasn't here."

"Mister Paul wasn't here, for sure, yesterday mornin'," Mike asserted; "I'd take me oath o' that. An' if he wasn't here, how could he see me givin' ye a light from me pipe? Answer me that! He says it's a little bird told him; but that's not it, I'm thinkin'. Not but that they have clocks with birds into 'em, that come out and tell the time o' day, 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' An' if that big clock he broke last week had a bird in it that could tell time that way, I'd break the thing quick--so I would."

"It ain't no bird," said Bob. "You can bet your life on that. No birds can't tell him nothin' no more'n you can catch 'em by putting salt on their tails. I know what it is Mr. Paul does--least, I know how he does it. It's second-sight, that's what it is! I see a man onct at the theayter, an' he----"

But perhaps it is not necessary to set down here the office-boy's recollection of the trick of an ingenious magician.

About half an hour after Paul had arrived at the office Mr. Wheatcroft appeared. The junior partner hesitated in the doorway for a second, and then entered.

Paul was watching him, and the same mischievous smile flashed over the face of the young man.

"You need not be alarmed to-day, Mr. Wheatcroft," he said. "There is no fascinating female waiting for you this morning."

"Confound the woman!" ejaculated Mr. Wheatcroft, testily. "I couldn't get rid of her."

"But you subscribed for the book at last," asserted Paul, "and she went away happy."

"I believe I did agree to take one copy of the work she showed me," admitted Mr. Wheatcroft, a little sheepishly. Then he looked up suddenly. "Why, bless my soul," he cried, "that was yesterday morning----"

"Allowing for differences of clocks," Paul returned, "it was about ten minutes to ten yesterday morning."

"Then how do you come to know anything about it? I should like to be told that!" the junior partner inquired. "You did not get down till nearly twelve."

"I had an eye on you," Paul answered, as the smile again flitted across his face.

"But I thought you were detained all the morning by a sick friend," insisted Mr. Wheatcroft.

"So I was," Paul responded. "And if you won't believe I had an eye on you, all I can say then is that a little bird told me."

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "Your little bird has two legs, hasn't it?"

"Most birds have," laughed Paul.

"I mean two legs in a pair of trousers," explained the junior partner, rumpling his grizzled hair with an impatient gesture.

"You see how uncomfortable it is to be shadowed," said Paul, turning the topic as his father entered the office.

That Saturday afternoon Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheatcroft agreed on the bid to be made on the steel rails needed by the Springfield and Athens road. While the elder Mr. Whittier wrote the letter to the railroad with his own hand, his son manoeuvred the junior partner into the outer office, where all the clerks happened to be at work, including the old book-keeper. Then Paul managed his conversation with Mr. Wheatcroft so that any one of the five employees who chose to listen to the apparently careless talk should know that the firm had just made a bid on another important contract. Paul also spoke as though his father and himself would probably go out of town that Saturday night, to remain away till Monday morning.

And just before the store was closed for the night, Paul Whittier wound up the eight-day clock that stood in the corner opposite the private safe.

IV

Although the Whittiers, father and son, spent Sunday out of town, Paul made an excuse to the friends whom they were visiting, and returned to the city by a midnight train. Thus he was enabled to present himself at the office of the Ramapo Works very early on Monday morning.

It was so early, indeed, that no one of the employees had arrived when the son of the senior partner, bag in hand, pushed open the street door and entered the long store, at the far end of which the porter was still tidying up for the day's work.

"An' is that you, Mister Paul?" Mike asked in surprise, as he came out of the private office to see who the early visitor might be. "An' what brought ye out o' your bed before breakfast like this?"

"I always get out of bed before breakfast," Paul replied. "Don't you?"

"Would I get up if I hadn't got to get up to get my livin'?" the porter replied.

Paul entered the office, followed by Mike, still wondering why the young man was there at that hour.

After a swift glance round the office Paul put down his bag on the table and turned suddenly to the porter with a question.

"When does Bob get down here?"

Mike looked at the clock in the corner before answering.

"It'll be ten minutes," he said, "or maybe twenty, before the boy does be here to-day, seein' it's Monday mornin', an' he'll be tired with not workin' of Sunday."

"Ten minutes," repeated Paul, slowly. After a moment's thought he continued, "Then I'll have to ask you to go out for me, Mike."

"I can go anywhere ye want, Mister Paul," the porter responded.

"I want you to go----" began Paul, "I want you to go----" and he hesitated, as though he was not quite sure what it was he wished the porter to do, "I want you to go to the office of the _Gotham Gazette_ and get me two copies of yesterday's paper. Do you understand?"

"Maybe they won't be open so early in the mornin'," said the Irishman.

"That's no matter," said Paul, hastily correcting himself; "I mean that I want you to go there now and get the papers if you can. Of course, if the office isn't open I shall have to send again later."

"I'll be goin' now, Mister Paul," and Mike took his hat from a chair and started off at once.

Paul walked through the store with the porter. When Mike had gone the young man locked the front door and returned at once to the private office in the rear. He shut himself in, and lowered all the shades so that whatever he might do inside could not be seen by any one on the outside.

Whatever it was he wished to do he was able to do it swiftly, for in less than a minute after he had closed the door of the office he opened it again and came out into the main store with his bag in his hand. He walked leisurely to the front of the store, arriving just in time to unlock the door as the office-boy came around the corner smoking a cigarette.

When Bob, still puffing steadily, was about to open the door and enter the store he looked up and discovered that Paul was gazing at him. The boy pinched the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it outside, and then came in, his eyes expressing his surprise at the presence of the senior partner's son down-town at that early hour in the morning.

Paul greeted the boy pleasantly, but Bob got away from him as soon as possible. Ever since the young man had told what had gone on in the office when Bob was its only occupant, the office-boy was a little afraid of the young man, as though somewhat mysterious, not to say uncanny.

Paul thought it best to wait for the porter's return, and he stood outside under the archway for five minutes, smoking a cigar, with his bag at his feet.

When Mike came back with the two copies of the Sunday newspaper he had been sent to get, Paul gave him the money for them and an extra quarter for himself. Then the young man picked up his bag again.

"When my father comes down, Mike," he said, "tell him I may be a little late in getting back this morning."

"An' are ye goin' away now, Mister Paul?" the porter asked. "What good was it that ye got out o' bed before breakfast and come down here so early in the mornin'?"

Paul laughed a little. "I had a reason for coming here this morning," he answered, briefly; and with that he walked away, his bag in one hand and the two bulky, gaudy papers in the other.

Mike watched him turn the corner, and then went into the store again, where Bob greeted him promptly with the query why the old man's son had been getting up by the bright light.

"If I was the boss, or the boss's son either," said Bob, "I wouldn't get up till I was good and ready. I'd have my breakfast in bed if I had a mind to, an' my dinner too, an' my supper. An' I wouldn't do no work, an' I'd go to the theayter every night, and twice on Saturdays."

"I dunno why Mister Paul was down," Mike explained. "All he wanted was two o' thim Sunday papers with pictures in thim. What did he want two o' thim for I dunno. There's reading enough in one o' thim to last me a month of Sundays."

It may be surmised that Mike would have been still more in the dark as to Paul Whittier's reasons for coming down-town so early that Monday morning if he could have seen the young man throw the copies of the _Gotham Gazette_ into the first ash-cart he passed after he was out of range of the porter's vision.

Paul was not the only member of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. to arrive at the office early that morning. Mr. Wheatcroft was usually punctual, taking his seat at his desk just as the clock struck half-past nine. On this Monday morning he entered the store a little before nine.

As he walked back to the office he looked over at the desks of the clerks as though he was seeking some one.

At the door of the office he met Bob.

"Hasn't the Major come down yet?" he asked, shortly.

"No, sir," the boy answered. "He don't never get here till nine."

"H'm," grunted the junior partner. "When he does come, tell him I want to see him at once--at once, do you understand?"

"I ain't deaf and dumb and blind," Bob responded. "I'll steer him into you as soon as ever he shows up."

But, for a wonder, the old book-keeper was late that morning. Ordinarily he was a model of exactitude. Yet the clock struck nine, and half-past, and ten before he appeared in the store.

Before he changed his coat Bob was at his side.

"Mr. Wheatcroft he wants to see you now in a hurry," said the boy.

Major Van Zandt paled swiftly, and steadied himself by a grasp of the railing.

"Does Mr. Wheatcroft wish to see me?" he asked, faintly.

"You bet he does," the boy answered, "an' in a hurry, too. He came bright an' early this morning a-purpose to see you, an' he's been a-waiting for two hours. An' I guess he's got his mad up now."

When the old book-keeper with his blanched face and his faltering step entered the private office Mr. Wheatcroft wheeled around in his chair.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he cried. "At last!"

"I regret that I was late this morning, Mr. Wheatcroft," Van Zandt began.

"That's no matter," said the employer;--"at least, I want to talk about something else."

"About something else?" echoed the old man, feebly.

"Yes," responded Mr. Wheatcroft. "Shut the door behind you, please, so that that red-headed cub out there can't hear what I am going to say, and take a chair. Yes; there is something else I've got to say to you, and I want you to be frank with me."

Whatever it was that Mr. Wheatcroft had to say to Major Van Zandt it had to be said under the eyes of the clerks on the other side of the glass partition. And it took a long time saying, for it was evident to any observer of the two men as they sat in the private office that Mr. Wheatcroft was trying to force an explanation of some kind from the old book-keeper, and that the Major was resisting his employer's entreaties as best he could. Apparently the matter under discussion was of an importance so grave as to make Mr. Wheatcroft resolutely retain his self-control; and not once did he let his voice break out explosively, as was his custom.

Major Van Zandt was still closeted with Wheatcroft when Mr. Whittier arrived. The senior partner stopped near the street door to speak to a clerk, and he was joined almost immediately by his son.

"Well, Paul," said the father, "have I got down here before you after all, and in spite of your running away last night?"

"No," the son responded, "I was the first to arrive this morning--luckily."

"Luckily?" echoed his father. "I suppose that means that you have been able to accomplish your purpose--whatever it was. You didn't tell me, you know."

"I'm ready to tell you now, father," said Paul, "since I have succeeded."

Walking down the store together, they came to the private office.

As the old book-keeper saw them he started up, and made as if to leave the office.

"Keep your seat, Major," cried Mr. Wheatcroft, sternly, but not unkindly. "Keep your seat, please."

Then he turned to Mr. Whittier. "I have something to tell you both," he said, "and I want the Major here while I tell you. Paul, may I trouble you to see that the door is closed so that we are out of hearing?"

"Certainly," Paul responded, as he closed the door.

"Well, Wheatcroft," Mr. Whittier said, "what is all this mystery of yours now?"

The junior partner swung around in his chair and faced Mr. Whittier.

"My mystery?" he cried. "It's the mystery that puzzled us all, and I've solved it."

"What do you mean?" asked the senior partner.

"What I mean is, that somebody has been opening that safe there in the corner, and reading our private letter-book, and finding out what we were bidding on important contracts. What I mean is, that this man has taken this information, filched from us, and sold it to our competitors, who were not too scrupulous to buy stolen goods!"

"We all suspected this, as you know," the elder Whittier said; "have you anything new to add to it now?"

"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."