CHAPTER XI.

IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO.

Amid the anxious bustle that filled the office Terry sat at his desk with strange and perplexing thoughts coursing through his brain. He had seen the bag just for one moment as Mr. Drummond was hastily throwing it into his desk. So far as he knew, only Mr. Hobart and himself, of the office staff, had any knowledge of its existence. That Mr. Hobart should have taken it was a notion so absurd that his mind refused to entertain it for an instant. His kind friend was to him the incarnation of every human virtue, and Terry would have resented hotly the insinuation that he could possibly be guilty of any such wrong-doing.

Who, then, could be the thief? As he looked about the office, glancing from one to the other of the countenances of the clerks, all of whom, laying aside their work for the time, were exchanging conjectures as to how the robbery had been managed, his eyes seemed drawn irresistibly towards Morley.

The latter was not at his own desk, but stood near the window looking out, as though not particularly interested in the earnest discussion, yet every now and then he gave a glance towards the group which showed that he was listening intently to all they said.

It was his expression when he did this which impressed Terry. It had a blending of anxiety, bravado, and cunning triumph that could not fail to provoke curiosity, if not to arouse suspicion, in so keen an observer.

Once he caught Terry studying him, and instantly his face flushed with anger, and he gave back such a vicious scowl that Terry, apprehensive of an outburst, took care not to meet his glance again.

Mr. Hobart had been in the inside office again for some time, when he came out, seeming more troubled than ever, and beckoned Terry to him.

"Mr. Drummond wants to see you," he said, "although I told him you couldn't know anything about it."

In no small perturbation Terry entered the sanctum. The two partners were sitting at their desks, both evidently greatly disturbed by what had happened.

"Did you see anything of the bag that has been stolen, Terry?" asked Mr. Drummond abruptly.

Terry hesitated for a moment. Did Mr. Drummond mean before it was put into the desk or after?

"Why don't you answer me at once?" demanded his questioner testily, while Mr. Brown regarded Terry with a look of sharp inquiry.

"I--I--didn't see it since you put it in your desk, sir," stammered Terry slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the toes of his boots.

"Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Drummond in a tone that suggested he thought he was getting some light on the mystery. "Then you did see the bag before it was put in my desk?"

"Yes, sir," answered Terry, the words coming more readily as he regained his self-command. "I saw the gentleman carrying it up the wharf."

"Was that all you saw of it?" asked Mr. Drummond, eying him narrowly. "Tell me now exactly."

"No, sir," replied Terry, the colour mounting in his face as the thought came that perhaps he would be suspected of prying into a matter that did not concern him. "I saw it when you were putting it into your desk."

The partners exchanged significant glances. Here now they seemed to be finding a clue that might help them. Recognizing the wisdom of being more diplomatic in his mode of cross-examination, Mr. Drummond pursued his inquiry in a much quieter tone.

"And how did you come to see the bag then?" he asked.

"The door of your office was open, sir," was the reply.

"And you were peeping, were you?" continued Mr. Drummond.

"Yes, sir. I didn't mean any harm," pleaded Terry.

"Perhaps not, but maybe harm has come of it whether you meant it or not," retorted Mr. Drummond in a half-sneering tone. "Now tell me, was that the last you saw of the bag? Have you seen nothing of it since? Look me straight in the face as you answer me."

Terry lifted his eyes, and looked full into his employer's face as he responded earnestly, "No, sir; sure as I'm standing here, sir, I haven't."

The fervent frankness of his manner carried conviction, and there was a perceptible change in Mr. Drummond's tone when he put the next question:--

"From the way you say that, Terry, I believe it's the truth. But tell me this: did you mention to any person about having seen the bag? Think now, before you answer."

The boy's countenance, which had assumed its natural colour, grew flushed again, and he hesitated for a moment before he replied,--

"I did tell my mother about it when I went home, sir."

Once more the partners exchanged meaning glances, and Mr. Brown seemed about to say something, when Mr. Drummond checked him by a warning motion of his hand.

"That will do for the present, Terry," said he. "I may want to ask you some more questions afterwards. Don't mention to any of the clerks what I've been asking you, or what you have told me. Just keep your own counsel. Do you understand?"

When Terry went out, the two men consulted earnestly together. From the signs left by the thief, whoever he was, it seemed clear that he had a complete knowledge of the premises. He had apparently entered the warehouse by a back window, which in his haste he had forgotten to close after him, broken open the desk with a large chisel, taken nothing except the bag, and made off in the same way that he had come.

Terry's confession as to telling his mother of the bag was, to say the least, suggestive. Black Mike had not much reputation to lose. According to the popular opinion of him, he would have small scruples about taking the bag. Of course he could not be arrested upon mere suspicion. Some more substantial grounds than that would have to be found. But, in the meantime, he was worth watching, and accordingly it was decided to engage a detective to "shadow" him, in the hope of obtaining further proof.

When Terry came out of Mr. Drummond's office, Mr. Hobart took him aside, and questioned him as to what he knew of the affair; and Terry told him as much as he could without disobeying Mr. Drummond's injunctions.

His listener did not make any comments, although in his mind there arose the same thought that had occurred to the partners.

Terry's quick instinct told him there was something significant in his story which had made an impression on the members of the firm and upon Mr. Hobart. Yet, strange to say, its actual import did not occur to him at the time. Indeed he was too deeply troubled with the fear lest he himself should be in some way regarded as an accomplice in the robbery, to speculate much as to who really might be the guilty one.

He saw nothing of his father all day. Black Mike had not shown up for work, and the foreman took it for granted he was off on a spree. But for the fact that after a holiday of this kind he always seemed determined to atone for his absence by increased exertion, and would positively do the work of two ordinary men, thanks to his enormous strength, his name would not have stood upon the Long Wharf pay-roll at all. As it was, he received wages for the time he actually worked, and seemed quite content with the arrangement.

It was late at night before he reeled into Blind Alley, and stumbled up the steep stairs to his squalid home. Tired though Terry felt, owing to the stress and strain of the day, he had, in spite of his mother's protests, stayed up to keep her company. Not a word did either speak when the drunkard lurched into the room and fell heavily across the bed. They knew better than to arouse his anger by addressing either himself or one another.

He rolled about uneasily on the hard bed, grunting and growling more like some wild animal than a human being. As he did so the clank of coins in his pocket could be heard, and presently in his contortions several of them worked out, and fell with a loud clang upon the floor. He made as though he would get up to recover them; but the effort was too much for him, and sinking back with a smothered oath, he fell into the heavy stupor of the drunkard's sleep.

It was not until he felt perfectly sure of his father's helplessness that Terry ventured to pick up the coins. To his astonishment they were not copper pennies, as he had supposed from the sound of their fall, but great golden double-eagles of the value of twenty dollars each.

With a bewildered expression of countenance he laid them on his mother's lap.

"Sure it's a heap of money," he whispered; "and how could father get hold of so much?"

Mrs. Ahearn felt the splendid coins one by one as though to convince herself that they were no optical illusion.

"The blessed saints preserve us, Terry!" she replied, crossing herself almost mechanically. "Maybe it's goblin gold, and we should not be touchin' it at all."

Not only was Terry far less superstitious than his mother, but he had enjoyed the advantage of a wider experience. He had often seen Mr. Hobart counting over precisely similar coins, and he felt pretty sure that there was no goblin element about the contents of his father's pockets.

"Och! no, mother," he answered, "it's not goblin gold at all. We often have the same at the office."

There was a certain perceptible note of pride in his voice as he brought out the last sentence, reassured by which Mrs. Ahearn took the coins into her hands again, and permitted her sense of beauty to indulge itself in admiring their perfection.

Neither spoke for the next minute; their brains were busy with perplexing thoughts. Meantime Black Mike lay motionless as a log, only an occasional gurgling gasp showing that he was actually alive. He was now lying upon the broad of his back, thus leaving all his pockets exposed. Acting upon an impulse that he could not restrain, Terry went over to him and made a thorough search of the pockets. The result was the discovery of three more double-eagles, making five in all.

One hundred dollars! more money by far than Black Mike had ever had at once in his life before. How could he have honestly come by it? Unknown to each other the same thought was forming in the mind of the mother and son, and they dared not look into one another's eyes lest it should be revealed. Mr. Hobart had told Terry that the black bag contained a very large amount of money in gold, and this the boy had duly repeated at home.

At last the silence became unendurable to both. Unable to restrain herself any longer, Mrs. Ahearn caught Terry by the arm, and drew him towards her.

"Holy Mary!" she murmured, as though praying for strength; and then, after a moment's pause, added in a hoarse whisper, "Could your father have stolen it, Terry?"

Terry started as if he had been struck, for his mother had uttered the very question that possessed his own mind. He did not hold towards his father a very warm affection. Black Mike's treatment of him from his babyhood had been too consistently unfatherly for that. But the thought of being arrested and sent to the grim granite penitentiary out by the North-West Arm filled him with horror.

"Surely not, mother," he responded with a warmth that was increased by his desire to convince himself as well as his mother. "It's not the likes of father to be stealing money; somebody must have given it to him."

The suggestion was a very unlikely one, yet they both sought to take comfort from it. Gold was very plentiful in Halifax in those days, and the successful blockade-runners lavished it with a free hand. Some one of them, whose wits had been stolen away by strong drink, might have filled Black Mike's pockets in a fit of reckless generosity.

But the more Terry thought over this the more improbable did it seem, and he felt himself, however reluctantly, thrown back upon the only other alternative to which almost unconsciously he gave expression.

"If father did steal the money," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the drunken form, "where do you think he could have got it?"

He put the question because, although he had already answered it in his own mind, he shrank from expressing his thought, at least until he saw whether the same had come into his mother's mind.

Mrs. Ahearn was silent for some moments. Then, bending over towards him as if afraid the sleeper might catch her words, she replied,--

"The black bag, Terry!"

Terry gave a groan of misery. His own harrowing suspicion had found expression in his mother's words, and instantly he saw himself transfixed between the horns of a terrible dilemma.

Not only so, but just as his mother had hit upon, the same solution of the mystery of the gold, so must she realize the position in which he was placed by it. That she did this was made clear the next moment; for, as he remained silent, she drew him into her arms, and folding him to her breast, sobbed out in plaintive tones,--

"Ye won't tell Mr. Drummond, will ye, Terry darlint? Sure it would break me poor heart entirely if they were to send the police after your father, and have him put in the penitentiary."

It was long past midnight before sleep came to Terry's eyes. He tossed and tumbled about on his hard bed in a state of the most painful perplexity. The idea of informing upon his father seemed nothing short of horrible to him, and yet did not duty to his employer and to the truth demand it? Mr. Drummond had been so good to him. Here, now, was an opportunity to prove his gratitude. By prompt action a good part of the stolen money might perhaps be recovered before it was squandered, therefore the sooner he informed the better. His mother had carefully put away the gold coins, in order that they might be restored when they knew for certain to whom they rightfully belonged. Should he take them to the office in the morning, and tell the whole story?

When he got up the next morning, a little later than usual, having overslept himself, he found his father already gone out. Black Mike had apparently not missed the gold, and asked no questions, although his drunkenness had disappeared.

Nothing was said between Terry and his mother while he ate his breakfast quickly; but just as he was hurrying off, she threw her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear,--

"Say nothin' about the gold to-day, Terry darlint. Maybe it wasn't your father took the bag at all."

At the office the clerks had settled down again to their regular routine, and the distractions of the preceding day having caused some arrears, they had to work all the harder to make them up. Terry was kept on his feet continually, and was left little time for quiet thinking. Mr. Hobart was absent, having been sent off by the firm on an important mission to Windsor, whence he would not return until the following day. Terry's heart sank when he heard this, for he craved a talk with his friend, although his mind was not yet made up as to whether he would tell him about his father.

Another absentee was Morley. A note had come from him, stating that he was ill and confined to bed, but hoped to be at his desk in a day or two. For some inexplicable reason, when Terry learned this the thought flashed into his mind that Morley might know something about the black bag. He could give himself no reason for it, yet there it stuck, and by its presence helped to strengthen his reluctance to make known the facts about his father.

In the afternoon the office was once more thrown into a state of excitement by the news that the detectives had discovered the thief, and already had him under arrest. Terry was out on an errand when the word came.

On his return he entered the office just behind Mr. Boggs, the assistant book-keeper, at sight of whom one of the other clerks, eager to be the first to tell the news, shouted out,--

"They've caught the burglar, Boggs. Guess who it is?"

Terry's heart stopped beating, and an icy chill ran through his body, as, pausing by the door, he waited in harrowing apprehension for the answer.