United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I laid the paper aside and stared out of the breakfast-room window like a man awakening from a horrid dream. Once again the submerging wave of realization and relief rushed over me. Truly, I had been held up and robbed; had in fact innocently financed this city-shaking elopement. But, so far as Agatha Geddis's banishment from Denver and Colorado could accomplish it, I was once more a free man.
We were to be married very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the social function which my position as one of the three partners in the Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this. It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained my bank account.
At the long last the half-dozen sleepy directors, three of them retired farmers and the other three local merchants, had awakened to the fact that there was something wrong. They didn't know fully, as yet, just what they were in for; Geddis's part of the bookkeeping was in a horrible muddle owing to his efforts to hide the defalcation.
At that time of night there was nothing stirring in the town, and in the midnight silence the ticking of the clock on the wall over Abel Geddis's desk crashed into the stillness like the blows of a hammer. I made the deputy sit down under the vault light while I worked the combination. The lock had not been changed, and the door opened at the first trial.
There was a defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to the penitentiary." Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the rending touch.
The big hand slipped from my shoulder and became a cautionary signal to flag me down. "You mustn't tell me nothin' about it, Bertie; I don't want to have to take the stand and testify against your father's boy. Besides, it ain't no kind o' use. You done it yourself when you was up at Abel Geddis's house las' night.
But speaking of affidavits, I have another; from a fellow named Griggs; you remember him, of course, your understudy in Geddis's bank at the time when you were bookkeeper and cashier?
Then the distorted sense of honor got in its work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me believe that I owed her something. "You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can't afford to be convicted." "Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert," the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that."
Up to a few days ago I thought the brown-eyed little thing you brought up here one night last fall to the theater was the average girl. But now I know better." It had always seemed a sheer sacrilege to even mention Mary Everton in Agatha Geddis's presence. But this time I broke over. "You know who she is?" I queried. "I do now. And I know her métier even better than you do, Bertie, dear.
You see, they were confidently counting upon 'getting' you through Geddis's daughter and were framing things up to fit. How much or how little they took the young woman into their confidence I don't know." "That doesn't matter now," I hastened to say. "No; Griggs was the man I wanted, and I got him. He will testify in court, if he is obliged to.
Word Of The Day