CHAPTER XXIII IN WHICH A BAD MAN REACHES THE END OF HIS ROPE

Herbert walked home from the Black residence that night. He did not care to ride. He wanted to have the opportunity to think over the exciting incidents of the last hour, and felt that he could not do so with any satisfaction to himself unless he was alone. The clocks were striking one o’clock in the morning when he finally reached his lodgings. The gas was burning in the little sitting room, and Tomlin was there in an attitude of expectancy.

“Well?” he said, with a questioning look. “What was the result of your adventure?”

Herbert’s jaw fell. It suddenly dawned upon him that he was once more placed in the attitude of a delinquent. He had unconsciously forgotten all about Tomlin and the fact that he was supposed to be out on an assignment. The thought mortified him very much. He looked into Tomlin’s clear eyes, and what he saw there prompted him to be candid. There was no use in attempting to beat about the bush; he would tell the truth and tell it as simply as possible; so he sat down and related all that had occurred from the time he left Tomlin early in the evening until the present moment. Only upon one phase of the story did he attempt any disguise, and that was when he related the threat which had been hurled at him by the burglar. He told his friend that a person who was very dear to Mary Black was in Adler’s power, and that the robber had threatened to expose this person and involve him in disgrace if he was not given an immediate release. When Herbert had concluded his narrative, Tomlin leaned back in his chair and gave vent to a hearty laugh. Herbert could not understand the cause of his mirth, and said so. Tomlin laughed again, and then said:

“I don’t suppose you see the humorous side of this thing; but it appeals to me very strongly. See here, Harkins, this thing is becoming marked with you. It begins to look as if you had gotten into the habit of falling down on all of your assignments.”

“I do feel a bit silly about this,” began Herbert, “but you see the position I was placed in. You see it was this way--”

“No explanations are necessary,” interrupted Tomlin in his familiar, hearty tones, “explanations are not of much use anyhow. Your friends don’t expect them, and your enemies wouldn’t believe them. I’m frank to say, however, that you did just what any man with red blood in his veins would have done under the circumstances. In fact I would have acted just as you did.”

“Then you don’t feel badly over it? You don’t blame me--”

“Not at all,” interrupted his friend once more; “I only ask you to promise me that you are through with this chivalrous business, and that if you intend to stay in the newspaper profession, you will quit it right here and now, and that hereafter when you are sent out on an assignment you will cover it and write it like a sensible man. Do you promise, Herbert?”

“I promise,” said the other meekly.

Thus ended the episode of the attempted robbery. Two days later Herbert started out early in the morning in order to make a tour of the hospitals for the purpose of finding some material for special articles. The first institution he visited was the Samaritan Hospital, with whose superintendent he was on terms of intimacy.

“Got anything to-day?” he said to that official.

“Not much,” was the yawning reply, “at least not much out of the ordinary. I don’t think we’ve anything here that you would care for.”

“Any deaths to-day?”

“No; but we have a queer sort of fellow here who was shot last night while trying to break into a house up-town.”

“Is that so?” remarked Herbert carelessly. “I don’t suppose there’s anything unusual in the case?”

“No, I don’t think so,” was the rejoinder. “Here’s his name,” and the superintendent pushed the big register over in the direction of Herbert.

The young man looked at the open page carelessly, and then gave a sudden start.

The name on the book was decidedly familiar. It was that of Harry Adler. Instantly he became all attention.

“Was the man seriously injured?” he asked anxiously, turning to the superintendent.

“I’m afraid he was; he was shot in the groin while attempting to escape from the house.”

“How is he getting along?”

“Badly,” was the response; “in fact I am satisfied in my own mind that he is going to make a die of it.”

Herbert’s sympathies were instantly aroused. He had no regard whatever for Adler, and looked upon him as a very undesirable member of society; but the thought of any man being shot and dying from his wounds appealed strongly to his sympathetic nature.

“I used to know this man at one time,” he said; “I wonder if I could be of any use to him. I wonder if he has any friends or relatives that he would care to see.”

“I don’t know,” replied the other.

“Could I see him?” persisted Herbert eagerly; “I might be able to do something.”

“Yes,” was the ready rejoinder, “come with me.”

The two men walked up a flight of stairs and into the accident ward of the hospital. They passed along through row after row of white counterpaned cots. Men of all kinds and descriptions were on these beds of suffering; some within the shadow of the Valley of Death, and others convalescent. In the last cot on the very end row they found the wounded burglar. He presented a pitiable spectacle; and when Herbert looked at his white face and at the countenance twisted with suffering, his heart melted and he forgot all the evil the man had done during his useless life. He groaned with the pain and looked up just as they reached his bedside. His eyes flashed a glance of recognition at Herbert. He put a thin hand outside of the coverlet, and exclaimed eagerly, but in a weak and husky voice:

“Hello there, boy! You’re just the person I want to see.”

“What is it?” asked Herbert, stooping down and speaking in a gentle voice.

“It’s just this,” replied the other in a voice that was not more than audible; “I am satisfied that I’ve reached the end of my rope. The doctor says there’s no hope for me. I suppose it serves me right, but that don’t make me feel any better. I know I’ve led a very miserable existence, and I suppose that as a man lives so he must die. It’s too late for me to do any good in the world now; but while I have the strength and the voice I’d like to clear up one little thing in which I am satisfied you have a personal interest.”

“Yes?” assented Herbert with much eagerness, bending a little lower so that he might hear the man’s voice; “what is it about?”

“It’s about the robbery of John Black’s house in Cleverly.”

“I thought so,” exclaimed Herbert, his eyes sparkling with the excitement of the moment; “what is it you want to tell me?”

“Well,” said the other, “you know all about the rumors that flew around Cleverly at that time. Your father’s name was involved. I want to tell you, and it’s a dying man who is speaking to you, that he was innocent of that.”

“I know it,” replied Herbert; “but who was guilty?”

“I’ll tell you that very briefly,” answered the stricken man. “You know the kind of fellow I was. I had no scruples. I wanted to live without work. I got acquainted with young Arthur Black, and I am afraid that I was the means of corrupting his morals. I traveled with him a great deal, and he learned many vicious habits through me. Well, this went on for some time, and one day I was filled with the desire of getting a good stake and running off to New York. In the course of my acquaintance with Arthur Black I learned that his father sometimes brought home money from the bank. On this particular day a customer who came in from the country late in the afternoon was anxious to make a deposit. It was after business hours, and the safe had been closed and locked for the day. The cashier, who was charged with the care of the vault, had gone home and could not be reached. To accommodate the depositor, Mr. Black accepted his money and took it home with him that night. I was hanging around the door of the bank at this time and overheard the conversation between the two men. I was tempted. It isn’t necessary to say that it did not take much to tempt me; but I was filled with an unquenchable desire to get hold of that money.

“Well,” continued the wounded man, his voice becoming lower and lower, “I hunted up Arthur immediately and managed to spend the next two hours with him. I pumped him about the habits of his father and the routine of their household. I wanted to know particularly how he was able to get in the house when he left me late at night as he often did. He said, in his innocence, that his mother was always his friend, and that in spite of the anger of his father she persisted in taking care of him. One of the ways she employed to do this was to leave the key of the dead latch of the door under the mat which lay on the front porch. That was the very thing I was anxious to learn, and when I discovered it I left Arthur abruptly, saying that I would see him the next night. It was after midnight when I went around to the Black house. The inmates apparently were asleep. I hung around till nearly one o’clock in the morning, anxious that all the conditions should be ripe for my dishonest enterprise. When I lifted the mat I found the key there as it had been described to me by Arthur Black. I got into the house without difficulty and went to the old man’s desk. It was one of those frail roll-top affairs, and I succeeded in breaking into it without any difficulty. I took the money, and then to throw them off the scent, broke the bolt on the back door to convey the impression that the robber had entered in that manner.”

“What happened then?” asked Herbert eagerly.

“The rest is soon told,” said Adler, his voice sinking to the merest whisper; “I became aware of the excitement that had been created by the robbery and kept myself in seclusion for some days. I felt a little bad when I learned that an effort had been made to place the robbery on your father, and when he died I was almost on the verge of making a confession; but didn’t do it. Some days after this I decided to go to New York with the money, and in a fit of devilishness resolved to take Arthur Black to New York with me. It seemed to me a very clever trick to entertain this foolish boy with the money that I had stolen from his father. You know the rest. We came here and he went from bad to worse until we got into that get-rich-quick concern which led to the breaking up of our partnership. Something happened to him then. What it was I have never discovered; but the boy turned good, and left me, saying that our paths would lie in different directions in the future; and he has kept his word from that day to this. You remember what happened the other night when you had me cornered in old Black’s house. I used Arthur’s name to secure my own liberty. There you have the whole story. I’m sorry for what I’ve done; that’s all I can say.”

The importance of this confession was appreciated by Herbert, who through the assistance of the superintendent, hastily summoned a stenographer and a Notary Public. Although the effort was a very painful one, Adler repeated his story just as he had told it to Herbert. After it had been reduced to writing, he swore to the truth of it, and then having a pen placed within his trembling fingers, signed his name in scrawling lines.

Herbert asked the man if there was anything he could do for him. He said if it was possible to lighten his last hours in any way he would be only too glad to do it; but Adler shook his head in a melancholy way and said he had no request to make. Herbert wanted to know if he had relatives or friends he wished to see before his death. Once more he shook his head, and added:

“My mother died when I was only a few years old; my father never took care of me. I don’t know now whether he is dead or alive, and even if I was aware of his abiding place I would not ask him to come here.”

Herbert felt a strange lump coming into his throat at these words. He wondered with a queer feeling about his heart whether he would have been any better than this dying man if his early life and surroundings had been the same; but when he left the hospital it was with a feeling of elation over the strange manner in which every detail of the Cleverly mystery had been brought to light. The vindication of his father’s memory was absolutely complete, and he could now go out into the world with a firm step and with his head in the air. On his return to his room he told the whole story to Tomlin, who listened with absorbed attention. Late that afternoon he made another call at the Samaritan Hospital. The superintendent, who was in the office, gave him a nod of recognition.

“How is that wounded man?” asked Herbert.

“Dead,” was the terse reply.