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Haven't a Pathfinder handy, have you? Never mind, there are plenty at the hotel. And if to-morrow is such another fine spring day as this, I'll run up there. I'll let you know the results later; and then, my trusty colleague, we will plot joyously for the well-being of John Wesley Pedders." "Huh!" says I. "Don't try to pull any steam yachts or French limousines on me this time.
"Who do you pluck this time?" "An enigma, so far as I am concerned," says he. "Listen: 'John Wesley Pedders, in 1894 cashier of the Merchants' Exchange Bank, at Tullington, Connecticut. Ever hear of such a person, Shorty!" "Not me," says I, "nor the place either." "Then it remains to be discovered first," says Steele, "whether for twenty years Pedders has stayed put or not.
"J. Bayard Steele," says I. "Ain't you actin' for a certain party that would have wanted it done?" "By Jove!" says he. "Shorty, you've hit it! Why, I'd never have thought of " "No," says I; "you're still seein' only that twenty per cent commission. Well, you get that. But I want to see the look in Mrs. Pedders' eyes when she hears the news."
About the only wild plunge the neighbors ever laid up against him was when he paid out ten dollars once for some imported tulip bulbs. Then all of a sudden it was discovered that a bunch of negotiable securities had disappeared from the bank vaults. The arrow pointed straight to Pedders. He denied; but he couldn't explain. He just shut up like a clam, and let 'em do their worst. He got ten years.
They all had it doped out that he'd salted away that hundred and fifty thousand somewhere, and would proceed to dig it up and enjoy it where he wa'n't known. But Pedders fooled 'em again. Straight back from the bars he come, back to Tullington and the little white story-and-a-half cottage on a side street, where Mrs. Pedders and Luella was waitin' for him.
It's the penalty one pays for being rural, I suppose. I've been here only two days; but I'll venture to say that most of the inhabitants know me by name and have made their guess as to what my business here may be. It's the most pitiless kind of publicity I ever experienced. But come on up to the postoffice, and I'll show you Pedders." "Fixture there, is he?" says I.
Pedders and her daughter, who believes him innocent. Strangely enough too, that's Norris, who was teller at the time. He's president of the bank now. I had a talk with him this morning. He insists that Pedders was too honest to touch a dollar; says he knew him too well. But he offers no explanation as to where the securities went. So there you are!
"And he never shall see them!" announced Mrs. Pedders emphatic. "H-m-m-m!" says I. "A whole boxful that nobody's opened? But suppose now that some of 'em wa'n't say, why not take a look at the lot, just the outsides?" Neither Mrs. Pedders nor Luella took kind to that proposition; but somehow I had a vague hunch it ought to be done. I couldn't say exactly why, either.
"That old Water Level Development Company's too." "And here's a note inside," says I. "Read it." It was to John Wesley Pedders, cashier of the Merchants' Exchange Bank, from Mr. Gordon.
She'd had some hand-to-hand tussle meanwhile, Mrs. Pedders had; but she'd stuck it out noble. At the start about nine out of ten of her neighbors and kind friends was dead sure she knew where that bunch of securities was stowed, and some of 'em didn't make any bones of sayin' she ought to be in jail along with Pedders. So of course that made it nice and comfy for her all around.
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