EVIDENCE BY MR. PLUM.
“Very well; we will drop the subject for the present,” John Hubbard remarked, with compressed lips, and making a visible effort for self-control, “but I want you to think over what I have said, and be prepared to give me a different answer later on.”
Allison started, and something in his tone stirred her anger and instantly restored all her self-possession.
“No,” she said decidedly, as she lifted her beautiful eyes, and steadily met his, “I do not need to think it over, and I could not give you any different answer later on. I know now that I do not love you well enough to marry you, and never shall; so, Mr. Hubbard, please never speak of this again to me.”
Her manner was so resolute, her tone so calmly authoritative he knew that she meant every word she uttered, and a terrible though silent rage took possession of him.
But he had far too much at stake to betray it, and thus incur her enmity. He meant to move heaven and earth to win her and her magnificent fortune. He meant to have both, if he could; but if she proved obstinate, and would not marry him, he had other plans—he would ruthlessly crush her, and so eventually win her money. Still, a young and pretty wife was worth temporizing for; and so, with a forced smile, he said:
“My child, I love you far too well to bring even a cloud to your dear face, so we will drop the subject for the present, and some time, perhaps, you will realize the value of a true and faithful heart.”
When he went away, Alison, with a troubled face, watched him from a window, as he passed down the street.
“Ugh!” she cried, shrugging her shoulders impatiently. “I could never marry him—never! Why, he is years and years older than I! Then he has such horrid eyes, and, when he smiles, his teeth look just like those of an ugly dog through that mustache of his, and make my flesh creep. I don’t believe that any man so repulsive can be really good, and I wonder how papa could have trusted him as he seemed to. I suppose, though, he must be a good business man; but marry him! I’d rather go into a convent and live out the rest of my life as a nun,” she concluded, with a shiver of disgust.
Then, suddenly, her thoughts reverted to Gerald, and a little color came back to her pale cheeks.
“I wonder where he can be,” she mused. “I think it is so strange that he has not been here—that he did not come to papa’s funeral, and has not even sent me a note to tell me that he is sorry for my trouble—he might, at least, have done as much as that.”
Her lips quivered, and hot tears rushed to her eyes, in view of this seeming neglect.
Many times during those days of loneliness and sorrow she had thought that if she could see Gerald, if only for a few minutes, his presence would be an inexpressible comfort to her; but she had told herself that it was his duty to either come to her, or send her a note of condolence, and she had been too proud to write and ask him to come.
But now, after her disagreeable interview with her guardian, the longing for him became so intense that, after struggling for a few moments with her emotions, she bowed her face upon her hands, and burst into violent weeping.
But poor Gerald was still a prisoner, awaiting his trial, which, for some inexplicable reason, had been deferred, from day to day, until he was now very impatient and miserable.
On Monday, after his arrest, he had sent a note to Professor Emerson, who, after listening to the young man’s story, looked grave and perplexed. The case seemed difficult, and he at once procured a lawyer, Mr. Arnold, for the prisoner. The latter at Gerald’s request, went to his room to procure the note that Mr. Brewster had written to him, but it was nowhere to be found.
The landlady was interviewed to ascertain, if possible, if any one outside the house had been in his room during his absence; but both she and the chambermaid asserted that there had not.
It was, nevertheless, a fact that John Hubbard had himself been there. As it happened, he knew another lodger in the same house, and on Monday evening following Gerald’s arrest, he called upon him, making a plausible errand of some kind. In this way he learned that Gerald’s room was located upon the same floor, and upon taking his leave, he shyly slipped into our hero’s apartment, and in less than two minutes reappeared with Mr. Brewster’s note in his possession, thus depriving his victim of an important piece of evidence.
Gerald, in laying his case before his lawyer, did not mention Allison, or the fact that she had been present in the room during any portion of his interview with her father.
He really believed that she had not entered in season to overhear anything that had been said about the “doctored” accounts, and even if he had known that such was the case, it is doubtful if he could have brought himself to call upon her as a witness for him. The thought of dragging her into a criminal court, to have her name bandied about by newspaper reporters, was very repugnant to him. Besides, she had not shown the slightest interest in him, or sympathy for him in his trouble. He reasoned that she could not fail to know of it, since it had been widely chronicled in the papers, and her apparent indifference cut him to the quick, wounding his pride as well as his love, and thus a certain obstinacy took possession of him, and made him secretly vow that he would not appeal to her, even if he knew that her evidence would save him from serving a sentence in State prison.
The real facts of the case were, that during the first few days after her father’s death, Allison had been so prostrated with grief that it had been comparatively easy for John Hubbard to keep all newspapers from her, which he had taken special pains to do, as he did not care to have her know anything of Gerald’s trouble until it was too late for her to interest herself for him. He believed that he had played his cards so cleverly that his conviction was inevitable, and, once behind prison-bars, he believed the fair girl would never give him another thought.
The case was finally called on the Tuesday following Mr. Brewster’s burial. John Hubbard appeared against Gerald armed and equipped with the falsified books, the casket of jewels, and the other box, which had been carefully relocked, for the wily plotter had no intention of having its secrets disclosed at present—those he was reserving for later schemes in connection with Allison.
The evidence for the prosecution was presented, with all the eloquence and cunning of which the expert was master, and to every listener in the room the fate of Gerald appeared settled before he concluded.
There were very few witnesses for the prisoner. The servant who had admitted him to the Brewster mansion on the Saturday previous to his master’s death, swore to the fact, thus proving that he had been there, and Professor Emerson, on taking the stand, spoke eloquently and in the highest terms of his pupil, and emphatically asserted that he believed him to be above doing a mean or dishonest act. But, of course, all this proved nothing.
Gerald was then allowed to go upon the stand, and tell his own story, and the moment that he turned his frank, handsome face to the audience, when he met those critical, searching glances with his clear, honest eyes, and manly bearing, it was evident that he made a favorable impression upon every person in the room—excepting his sworn enemy. When he finally concluded, Hubbard demanded the production of the note from Mr. Brewster relating to “a special commission.”
“It cannot be found,” Mr. Arnold gravely responded. “Mr. Winchester left it in a pocket of his business-suit on Sunday, when he went to the bank to execute his employer’s commission. He has not been in his room since; but when I was authorized to go to his room to secure this note, it had mysteriously disappeared. Nevertheless, the fact that he went to Mr. Brewster’s residence on the date stated, and was admitted to the man’s presence, proves conclusively that he was sent for.”
“Not at all,” retorted the prosecuting-attorney, “any one might have called at the banker’s residence, requested an audience, and been admitted to his presence without a previous appointment. We are not asking opinions, your honor, we want evidence. You assert,” he added, turning to Gerald, “that Mr. Brewster gave you the keys to the bank and his private drawer in the vault. Will you state where he took them from before handing them to you?”
“From a drawer in the table beside him.”
“Exactly. Where any one could easily have secured them in the event of Mr. Brewster’s back being turned for a moment,” retorted the expert laconically. “Now, with reference to these falsified accounts,” said Hubbard, touching the books before him, his white teeth gleaming viciously for a moment beneath his mustache, “you claim, I believe, that they are none of your work—that some one else has changed your figures. We would like to have your statements proven, young man.”
“I never knowingly made a false entry in my life,” Gerald proudly returned, but flushing hotly beneath the man’s insolent manner; “my own figures were all correct when entered, but my ‘ones’ have been made over into fours, nines, sevens, zeros, and so forth——”
“But the proof, young man—the proof!” interposed his tormentor.
“If any one will add the columns, calling such figures as I should point out, ‘ones,’ the balance would be found correct in every instance,” Gerald replied.
“Possibly, but we want evidence to prove that those ‘ones’ have been changed.”
“You can have it, sir,” said Mr. Arnold, in a brisk, businesslike tone, that made John Hubbard prick up his ears, and, at a signal, another witness now came forward.
He was a small, olive-complexioned man, with straight black hair, small, sharp features, with a pair of keen, black eyes, which were shaded by steel-bowed spectacles.
His manner was abrupt, and there was a decisive air about him which indicated strong personality, while he rejoiced in the sobriquet of Plum—Mr. Thomas Plum.
“Mr. Plum,” courteously observed Mr. Arnold, “will you tell the court what you have discovered with reference to those ‘doctored accounts’?”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” responded the brisk little man, taking out some tablets, “I find no less than eighty instances where the figure ‘one’ has been skilfully changed to some other figure, in those accounts, and covering a period of from sixteen, to eighteen months. If the figures were added as ones, which they were originally, the balance would, in every instance, be correct; but, according to the changes made, there seems to be a deficit of several hundreds of dollars.”
John Hubbard suddenly sat erect, an alert spark glittering in his cold, gray eyes.
“So you assert, under oath, Mr. Plum, that those figures have all been changed since the original balances were made up?” he observed, in a metallic tone.
“Yes, sir,” briefly but positively.
“You are willing to swear that the work was all square and right when the clerk left it under the dates there recorded?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“Prove it, if you please.”
“That I am prepared to do,” said the expert cheerfully, but flashing a look at his questioner which sent a sudden chill through him. “In the first place, Mr. Winchester’s figures were all entered with the same ink, and with a fine-pointed steel pen. The figures that have been tampered with show a different ink, and were evidently changed with a gold, and, probably, a fountain-pen.”
“How can you detect between the work of a gold and a steel pen?” queried Hubbard, with a skeptical smile.
An answering smile curved the lips of Mr. Plum.
“With the utmost ease, sir, as you would soon discover were you to study the subject with the aid of a powerful microscope. The ink flows very differently from a gold and from a steel pen. My examination has proved to me that Mr. Winchester was not guilty of any of the changes referred to—his figures all being very decided, especially in their angles, while the work of the real culprit, although very cleverly done, shows a certain individuality of roundness about the angles that appears nowhere in Mr. Winchester’s figures. Your honor will observe by the aid of this powerful glass the peculiarities of which I have spoken,” Mr. Plum concluded, as he passed a small case up to the judge, who, after making a careful examination of certain figures, pointed out to him, gravely observed:
“I do so observe; it is evident that the changes were not made by the prisoner.”
Gerald’s face lighted with pleasure at this remark, but his joy was short-lived, for the matter of the doctored accounts was dropped then and the charge of theft taken up.
There followed a long, sharp contest, during which his counsel fought nobly every inch of ground for him; but the burden of proof was all against him, and when the case was finally summed up the outlook was certainly very discouraging.
The judge had been strongly attracted toward Gerald by his frank, honest face, his manly bearing, and his straightforward story; but he was reluctantly compelled to admit that the evidence was decidedly against the prisoner, and he rose to address the jury and summarize the testimony, but before he could utter a word the door of the court-room was thrown open, and a slender, black-robed figure darted inside, and walked, with a quick, firm tread directly toward him.
The intruder was Allison Brewster.