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Frank Algernon Cowperwood, a well-known banker and financier of this city, doing business in Third Street, is charged by the State of Pennsylvania, represented by the district attorney of this district, with fraudulently transferring from the treasury of the city of Philadelphia to his own purse the sum of sixty thousand dollars, in the form of a check made out to his order, dated October 9, 1871, and by him received from one Albert Stires, the private secretary and head bookkeeper of the treasurer of this city, at the time in question.
In the meantime Cowperwood, from what he could see and hear, was becoming more and more certain that the politicians would try to make a scapegoat of him, and that shortly. For one thing, Stires had called only a few days after he closed his doors and imparted a significant bit of information.
"Stires, eh?" And he looked at me. I had been thinking, as we stood on the steps. "How am I to move Ching Po off?" I asked irritably. It had suddenly struck me that, inspired by Madame Maür, we were embarking on sheer idiocy. "I'll move him," replied Follet with a curious intonation. At that instant my eye lighted again on the pistol. "Not with that."
She turned her back to me, and I was dismissed from her barefoot presence. Stires was my logical goal after that, and I found him busy with the second mate of a tramp just in from Papua and bound for the Carolines. After the man had gone, I informed Stires of the episode. For a man who had damned Schneider up and down for making presents to a lady, Stires reacted disappointingly.
But in that I had done him injustice; for in a few moments he debouched from yet a third approach. Ching Po had evidently doubled, somehow, and baffled him. I rose to meet him, and he slowed down to take me on. By this time the peaceful water front had absorbed the Chinaman; and if Stires was at home, the two were face to face. I made this known to Follet. "Give me back my pistol," he panted.
But I kept a keen eye out for Follet. I thought Stires could look out for himself, so long as it was just Ching Po. It was the triangular mix-up I was afraid of; even though I providentially had Follet's pistol. And, for that matter, where was Follet? Had he given up the chase? Gone home for that drink, probably.
"Tell Mr. Stires to wait." Aileen came briskly, vigorously in, her beautiful body clothed as decoratively as ever. The street suit that she wore was of a light golden-brown broadcloth, faceted with small, dark-red buttons.
But in the very instant of my turning from him I saw tragedy pierce through the mask of rage. The man was suffering; he could no longer hold his eyes and lips to the expression of anger. I spoke to him very gently. "Has Miss Eva really anything to fear from that miserable Chinaman?" Stires bowed his head on his hands. "Not a thing, now. He's done his damnedest.
A darned sight too good to go native " Then I stopped, for Follet was hardly himself, nor did I like the look of myself as a common scold. We did not find Stires, and after an hour or two we gave up the search. By dusk, Follet had got to the breaking-point. He was jumpy. I took him back myself to the hotel, and pushed him viciously into Ching Po's arms.
Judge Rafalsky held, for instance, that if a crime had been committed at all, it was not that known as larceny, and he went on to add: "It is impossible, from the evidence, to come to the conclusion either that Cowperwood did not intend shortly to deliver the loan or that Albert Stires, the chief clerk, or the city treasurer did not intend to part not only with the possession, but also and absolutely with the property in the check and the money represented by it.
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